


say not a word; I can hear you

by forochel



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-09-13 17:03:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9133252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel
Summary: "He was from Hasetsu," Chris tells him quietly."Oh." Caught mid-laugh is a slight, young man with kind, brown eyes. He's soft all around where edges should be, nothing like - nothing like a Ranger. "You think he's gone back there? Really?"There's a pause, Chris spinning his spanner around his knuckles. He shrugs. "I dunno, Yuuri's always had a streak of crazy in him. So. Maybe."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm aware that there's another Pac Rim!AU - my best friend has kindly had a look at it for me (ty, bb!) and assures me ... and therefore you, I guess ... that our stories are stylistically divergent and differently premised enough for me to be in no danger of plagiarism. so. please enjoy.
> 
> Title is from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh9yZWeTmVM).

  
  


He's the prodigy of Russia; beloved of the people; tragic hero of all the tragic heroes in this post-kaiju world. 

  


*

  


In the second wave of attacks, they're out at sea, patrolling the Eastern seaboard of Russia.

They feel it coming even before their radio screeches to life, through the drift. 

_A disturbance in the Force_. The thought floats in between them, and an amused snort bounces back and forth. 

There's only enough time for that before they're locked into battle with Leviathan, risen out of the sea: primal, sinewy, an alien horror birthed from the crust of this earth. 

The religious purists say it's God's punishment for all the sins of the left-wing hippy liberals.

The left-wing hippy liberal environmentalists theorise that it's the earth rebelling against the cancer of humanity. These people have also, possibly, played too much Final Fantasy Seven. 

The scientists research furiously, collaborating with geologists, anthropologists, linguists, zoologists, climatologists. They ignore the furious, hysterical orders of their respective governments to preserve national security. 

All this is secondary to the struggle, now: the carbonised, reinforced steel casing around them shaking under the strain of their tussling for an advantage with _a new category!_ , Viktor protests in their headspace. Their neural link is trembling under the weight of their fear, their stress, their desperation to survive. 

And all _that_ is secondary to the fucking tail that comes out of nowhere and smashes their left flank to pieces. 

  


*

  


"We understand," grits out Yakov, hat in his lap for once and not on his head. "If you wish to take a leave of absence." 

Where would he go? Viktor has no home but the Shatterdome now. He hasn't had a home since he left St. Petersburg, safely inland, to join the Jaeger Academy. 

So he stays instead: for three years he trains harder, beats all the simulations, and yearns for and shies away from the idea of drifting again in equal measure. He trains new pilots and devises strategy. Practises kata and traces the kaiju underground cults that have been springing up everywhere. 

Sometimes he looks to the Wall projects, when yet another trial in the Kwoon has failed, and - what is it, when one is tempted into giving into despair? What is the inverse of a dream or a hope? When escape is not freedom, but withdrawal?

  


*

  


And then Hasetsu happens.

  


*

  


And then one of the most promising trainees in the Ranger programme goes AWOL.

The tensions in the Shatterdome, in the aftermath, ratchet higher. 

Viktor takes to hiding with Maccachin (actual code name: MACCA), tinkering with her insides using materials and tools he's viciously bartered for on the black market. He's in the lee of her ankle when footsteps draw near, and come to a stop.

A slim folder drops, and Viktor catches it reflexively before he can check himself.

"So you're still not rusty, huh," says Chris. 

"You wish," Viktor returns, before flipping the folder open. MIA is stamped across the top page. "What's this?" 

There's a photograph taped to the next page.

"He was from Hasetsu," Chris tells him quietly.

"Oh." Caught mid-laugh is a slight, young man with kind, brown eyes. He's soft all around where edges should be, nothing like - nothing like a Ranger. "You think he's gone back there? Really?"

There's a pause, Chris spinning his spanner around his knuckles. He shrugs. "I dunno, Yuuri's always had a streak of crazy in him. So. Maybe."

  


*

  


The inchoate beginnings of an idea settle in the back of his mind over the next few weeks. Viktor goes to work, practises sims, works on Maccachin, works out, tries the Kwoon trials, stomps out of the Kwoon trials; rinse, repeat.

It comes to a head when Viktor is reviewing old tape, simulation runs thrown at him (quite literally) by Yuri, whom Yakov had deputise for Project: Find Viktor a Copilot, Goddamnit. 

He's pretty sure Yuri'd just rummaged through the archives and pulled out every 6th file or something, because some of these people are dead (Lysacek), Retired (Plushenko, Yagudin, Kwan), or ... missing in action (Katsuki Yuuri). 

Katsuki Yuuri - even if it weren't for his disappearance after Hasetsu, his name would ring a bell anyway. 

When Viktor looks through his file, he knows why. The beauty of his tactics, the ease and lightness with which he slipped into the drift, his high intuition scores ... he'd have been heading for a meeting in the Kwoon with Viktor anyway. Until Hasetsu. Viktor flips through the file til he finds the profile page. 

The younger son of a small, Japanese family based in Kyushu. Ownership of an onsen inn in a little, seaside town that had defiantly refused to evacuate even after the first wave of kaiju attacks. To their detriment. 

Viktor closes the folder and sighs, tipping his head back against the wall behind him and pressing his fingertips to his eyelids. The black of the back of his eyelids spark white and green, like the static that had rushed through him when   when he'd been ripped cruelly out of the drift and left utterly alone. 

Too late, anyway. Katsuki is a ghost in the system, the name that makes Yakov twitch angrily and Lilia look sad. 

He lays the folder aside to continue this farce of a task, when a flash drive slips out of the clear pocket sealed to the front. He hesitates, then picks it up and plugs it into the simulator and himself into the system.

  


*

  


Hasetsu from Hong Kong used to be a direct commercial flight, and then a train ride.

Post-Kaiju, Viktor steals away on a train up from Shenzhen to Hangzhou, then an overland flight to the tip of the peninsula past Qingdao. From there he hops on a cargo flight to Incheon, where the grizzled pilot turns a blind eye to his presence, and takes the inland train down to Busan. It takes him three solid days to find a cargo pilot willing to let him stay onboard for the bumpy flight to Fukuoka, but he gets there eventually.

And then he has to rent his own jeep and drive himself to Hasetsu.

No one knows why Hasetsu was targeted - not in its little section along the northern coastline of Kyushu, not with Fukuoka - a bigger urban centre - further to the East. Previous attacks have all been on big cities: Tokyo, Sydney, Lima, Shanghai. Why a sleepy little coastal town? 

The slick of Kaiju blue is mysteriously missing from the coastline Viktor drives past. Then he remembers that Kaminari and Inazuma had borne Amanozako further out to sea before chopping it to pieces and - in the case of Inazuma - self-immolating. A cremation at sea. 

  


*

  


Murmuring sweeps through the scattered crowd of people on the high street, when Viktor parks and gets out of the jeep. He manages to pick “Nikiforov” out of the mutters, and fixes his media-friendly smile onto his face before straightening up. 

The looks he gets as he walks closer to the line of shops on the side of the road _not_ decimated by Amanozako are an even split between awed and suspicious. But they’re too busy, weighed down by recent loss and tragedy and shifting rubble in the dwindling light, to pay him much mind. There’s already the beginnings of tracery along the shore-side bank of the road for Wall construction. 

Partway down the road, a series of stalls have sprung into being, like the ill mockery of a Japanese festival. The vendors hawk sticky white dumplings charred over coal, skewers of chicken and liver, bowls of a dark, steaming broth with radish slices, boiled eggs and some other unidentifiable shapes. No seafood, for a seaside town.

A quick question, in Viktor’s hastily learnt Japanese (out of a phrasebook), sends him back up the high street and into his car. The Katsuki inn’s a little further set back into the mountains than he’d thought. 

  


*

  


The inn is bustling with people, converted into a boarding house for those who had their homes destroyed, and for the Wall builders come from around Kyushu. 

“That’s -” 

“- the hero of-”

“- Russia, Nikiforov.”

Startled whispers spring up when Viktor trips over the step up from the genkan and smiles automatically in apologetic embarrassment. 

“Ah,” calmly says the bespectacled, middle-aged man with Katsuki Yuuri’s eyes, ignoring the gossips in the dining area off to the side. “Welcome to Yuu-topia. The onsen is only open to day-guests til 8pm. Will you be staying for the night?”

Viktor blinks at him. “I  ”

The furthering of courtesies is completely derailed when a stocky girl with bleached hair elbows Katsuki-san out of the way with a hissed “ _That’s Viktor Nikiforov, papa!_ ” and says to him in lightly accented English, “We don’t have any guest rooms left but we’ll make a space for you. Please make yourself at home. The onsen is that way.”

She points off to the right, down a corridor partly obscured by half-length curtains, and Viktor obediently trots off. That tone of voice is reminiscent of Lilia's.

  


*

  


Viktor’s curled up on his patch of tatami, having vacated the onsen just in time for the wave of labourers coming in from the end of their shift to soak their aches away. The thin cotton of the bathing robe is smooth against his skin, his limbs warm and weighed down by lassitude onto the sweet-smelling woven grass, a little sharp with hints of mineral salts. 

Slipping in and out of wakefulness, Viktor feels a bit like he’s in the drift, snatches of half-comprehensible conversation catching his ear. 

A new scent curls nearer, and Viktor blinks himself out of his daze to see a tray with a black, lacquered bowl of ... something that smells absolutely delicious set down in front of him. It makes him smile, the corners of his mouth turning up. Rations at the Shatterdome are healthy, well-balanced, and at least resemble food, but - they were nothing like this. 

He only remember his manners after he’s devoured at least a quarter of the bowl: a savoury, flavourful mixture of fried pork strips, perfectly tender on the inside and crispy on the outside; fragrantly sticky rice; some kind of sauce that’s salty and sweet at the same time, all bound together with gooey, half-cooked egg. 

“Delicious!” Viktor enthuses, stretching his mouth wide in the hopes that it appropriately conveys exactly how much he loves this food from the gods. “What is this?” 

“ _Katsudon_ ,” says the compact, stout woman with Katsuki Yuuri’s kind smile. His mother. “I’m glad you like it.” Then she looks over at the young woman with bleached tips. “Mari...”

Mari steps forward from where she’d been leaning against the doorway to the private area of the inn, arms folded. “ _Hai_?” 

Yuuri’s mother says something to her in Japanese, and Mari translates. “That’s our specialty. We have another one, squid sashimi, but, well.” She shrugs laconically, her mouth pulling wryly to one side. Her eyes are sharp despite the blank mask she wears. 

Well, indeed. 

Viktor chews slowly on another spoonful of his _katsudon_ , and swallows. “Why -?”

He can’t form the sentence in English, but thankfully Mari seems to understand. Her mouth pulls wryly to the other side, before turning to her mother. They have a rapid exchange in Japanese before Mari turns back to him.

"This is our home. This is our hot spring. We will provide a place for our defenders while we still can." 

His eyes smart. 

  


*

  


They don't mention Katsuki - no, they're all Katsukis, here. They don't mention Yuuri at all. Not for that whole night, though Viktor _knows_ that they know why he’s here. The only plausible reason for Viktor Nikiforov to be in Hasetsu. Somehow, Viktor doesn’t feel like breaking this ... this silent understanding that they have, not this night. 

He’s up early, before the winter sun has risen, after a night of restless sleep in the room they’ve put him in. It’s near the banquet room, which has been converted into a mass dormitory for the Hasetsu inhabitants who’d lived nearer the shoreline. Viktor’s used to living in close quarters with others, but somehow in this peaceful place, where the only sounds at night are of the waves slapping against the shore a kilometre away and the birds in the trees, the quiet noises of human movement at night disturb his sleep. 

Outside in the courtyard, barely a thing is moving. It feels like he’s standing in a bowl of thin, pre-dawn light, watery and vulnerable. The quiet before the storm, except that the storm has already come. Further out towards the shore, a few dark figures move slowly along the foundations of the Wall-to-be.

"He might be up near the castle." Mari’s voice cuts through the silence.

Viktor jumps, suppresses a scowl, and turns to her. She’s leaning against the door, smoke curling up through the air from the cigarette held loosely between her fingers. He can barely read the look on her face; the sharp look in her eyes, though - it feels like he’s being judged right down to the bones. Judged, weighed, and found worthy of her brother’s location, somehow. 

It makes him smile again, a small one, and he dips his head and carefully enunciates, “ _Arigatou gozaimasu_ ,” just like he’d practised all the way here.

She snorts and rolls her eyes, flicking cigarette ash at him. “That’s terrible. Get lost.”

  


*

  


The quality of light changes as Viktor makes his way up to the castle; it thickens, strengthens, gold seeping into it. The sun a hazy globe over the deceptively calm seas. You wouldn’t think a monster from the depths had surged out of it recently. A good part of Hasetsu, as seen from the castle ramparts, is rubble and ruins. The number of black dots moving about near that rubble has multiplied, distant shouts from the foremen echoing in the distance. 

He emerges out into a flat space that may once have been a back garden. 

There’s a silhouette doing kata amongst the cherry trees. He's not as slight as he was in the photographs, or the simulator records, but the graceful elegance to his movements is still unmistakably Katsuki Yuuri. There’s a lightness to his limbs, despite the extra padding he’s put on, something about the way he slides from move to move that draws the eye and calls out to something in Viktor. 

It occurs to Viktor, in the breath between making himself known and Yuuri looking up, startled, that he does not know how he is going to do this. 

  


*

  


Yuuri’s eyes go visibly wider, even from afar - though the distance between them is rapidly closing - and he pales noticeably, backing away. Viktor follows, until Yuuri almost trips backwards over a stone bench and Viktor catches him in time, one hand on his forearm and the other curved around the soft, yielding flesh of his hip. Yuuri drops, onto the bench, away from Viktor’s grasp. 

He’s incoherent, barely managing to form words. Knuckles white where he’s gripping the edge of the bench. 

“Ah ... ah...” 

Viktor sits down next to him and waits, trying on a patient smile. 

"I can't leave them!” Yuuri bursts out. “They're my family. I almost lost them once, and ..." he turns away, cheeks flushed, the flash of tears in the corner of his eye. 

"And you think the Wall will save them again?" Viktor doesn't ask, nor does he say, "Your test scores didn't show that you were this stupid.”

He just says, "You miss the katas, don't you?" and "Your form is sloppy, I'm going to fix that for you." 

And Yuuri ... doesn’t exactly relax, his body still held tight and stiff, but he lets Viktor call out adjustments and instructions as he goes back to the kata Viktor’d interrupted. 

“You got good enough scores to top your class every year,” Viktor says mildly, when Yuuri moves through a final pattern of knifehand strikes, crescent kicks, and a final butterfly kick before coming to a stuttered landing. “But you never did. Why?”

Yuuri looks up at him, cheeks pink with exertion and glasses slightly askew on his face. Then he looks down and away, bringing his feet back to hips-width apart and his hands to his sides. It’s as good an answer as any. 

Viktor sighs, before rising to his feet. 

“Yuuri,” he approaches Yuuri slowly, as one would a skittish woodland creature. “You don’t move like you’re used to your body. Yes?” Yes - Yuuri flushes harder. Viktor can’t see his eyes. “That’s why you lose your balance, sometimes. It’s more weight than you anticipate bearing.”

He watches Yuuri blink at him, watches Yuuri stay silent.

“Do you want to spar with me?” Viktor asks, finally. 

Yuuri goes still all over. 

“Yes,” Yuuri whispers. 

“Well, then!” Viktor says, forcing cheer into his voice. “I think we know what you need to do before that happens!” 

  


*

  


The days blur by in early morning runs, conditioning exercises, and kata. More often than not, Viktor does them alongside Yuuri. There’s an old dojo in the shadow of Hasetsu Castle; abandoned, now. The family that ran it moved to Gifu, apparently, and the young couple that took over from them are now in Hong Kong. That much Viktor got out of Yuuri before he buttoned up tight.

Yuuri’s running through a krav maga kata - it doesn’t suit him. The aggressive, forceful brutality of it. Essential, for a Ranger, but still ... there are other systems native to Japan that suit Yuuri more, or even the Chinese Sanshou system. _Viktor_ prefers those systems more.

“I’m not a Fightmaster,” Viktor starts, and is interrupted by a soft snort. He blinks, and then smiles. 

Yuuri’s smiling, too: a little, amused thing tucked into the corner of his mouth.

“I can tell.”

Viktor lets out a cry, staggering theatrically back until he trips over an uneven border between the tatami, and falls to the floor.

“Wounded to the quick! You’re so cruel, Yuuri,” he whines. Through the veil of his hair, he sees the smile on Yuuri’s face widen, and feels a deep thrum of satisfaction.

  


*

  


They spend a fair amount of time on the Wall, too, no matter how much Viktor’s heart cries out against the _waste_. Do they really think this will protect them? One look at Yuuri’s determined face, at his calloused hands and bleeding knuckles, and Viktor keeps his mouth shut.

“You fight like you’re dancing,” Viktor observes one day, when they’re in the dojo. He’s caught Yuuri’s foot in his hand; it’s pointed, like a ballet dancer’s. 

Yuuri blushes and looks down. “Oh, that. Minako-sensei taught me when I was younger - before I joined the Academy.”

“...Minako. As in Okukawa Minako?”

Okukawa Minako - one of the first few Mark II Rangers. Yuki-Onna. Was a professional ballet dancer before volunteering for the Jaeger programme and turned out to be a genius at short-range weaponry as well. Retired after cancer took out her partner. Retired to Hasetsu, apparently. Yuuri is an endless well of surprises.

“Did she teach you to use naginata?”

Yuuri ducks his head, bashful, before lifting his foot out of Viktor’s grasp. 

“Yes, but I learnt other weapons in the training programme too. Shall we go again?”

  


*

  


He meets Minako in her ballet studio, a few days later, trailing in Yuuri’s wake. 

“So you’re Viktor, huh?” she says, chin in her hand, elbow cupped in her other hand. The glint in her eyes is uncannily similar to the one in Mari’s when looking at him. They’re both leaning against the barre, as Yuuri warms up with some floorwork.

“And you’re Minako- _sensei_ now,” Viktor returns, smiling faintly. 

She parries: “It suits me, don’t you think?” 

Yuuri moves on to the barre for exercises, and Minako turns her attention away from Viktor to bark comments at him. Viktor’s almost jealous of the way Yuuri just smiles and easily says “ _Hai, hai_ ”, before correcting the angle of his arm or the height at which he holds his foot, without any stumbling or stuttering. It happens less and less often, now, but nevertheless. 

“Yes,” Viktor says to Minako’s back. “It does.” 

Minako’s eyebrow is raised when she turns to face him.

She leans in and tells him, voice low, “You cannot be all things to him, Viktor.” 

It makes his breath catch in his throat; Yuuri must be making him embarrassingly transparent. 

Behind them, Yuuri is giving them a suspicious look in the mirror as he performs battements, extending his left leg from the cou-de-pied to the front, then the side, then the back. The flicks of his leg are achingly sharp and controlled. 

Minako catches Viktor’s chin in her hand; the whorls of her fingertips are rough against his skin. 

“No - listen to me. You cannot let him make you into his everything. Not in this life. You understand this - you’ve lost a drift partner.”

Yuuri’s pirouetted to face them, ostensibly so he can work his right leg. But the look in his eyes has shifted from suspicion to alarm. 

Viktor jerks his face out of Minako’s grip, annoyed now. “I know that.”

She looks at him, long and piercing, before leaning back and resting her weight on the barre. Flicking a glance back at Yuuri, she says, “Stepwork, Yuuri,” before returning her attention to Viktor. “Good. So make your choice.”

Breathing in deeply through his nose, Viktor wishes very violently that he’d never met her, then takes it quickly back. 

  


*

  


A cold front blows in, bringing chill winds and dusting everything with powdery, white snow. 

“Ah,” muses Toshiya-san, as flurries swirl by outside. “It will only get worse from here. But you must be used to it, _ne_ , Viktor-san?”

Viktor drags his gaze away from Yuuri, clearing the path outside, framed by the windows and softly lit by the warm yellow light spilling out of the windows. His dark hair is dotted with unmelting snowflakes, his ears red with cold.

“Sorry? Oh, well, Hong Kong isn’t this cold in winter,” Viktor smiles. “And it’s been some time since I was in Russia.”

This is also about the time bumpy, round, yellow fruits appear in the onsen. 

Yuuri laughs at his confusion, and Viktor wonders what it might be like to have Yuuri laugh at him while they’re in the drift. 

“Ex _plain_ it to me,” he demands, feeling childish and wild with it. “Yu- _u_ -ri!"

The smug curl to Yuuri’s lips as he nudges at one the mystery fruits, sending it bobbing into collision course with another, is driving Viktor mad. 

“Yuzu,” says Yuuri, finally, when he seems to have deemed fit the amount of time Viktor’s spent stewing. “These are yuzu. It’s winter solstice today, so we’re having a yuzu bath. It’s supposed to be good for you.”

It certainly smells good, tart and citrusy. Uplifting, in a way. Viktor reaches out and gathers an armful of yuzu to him, ducking his head to breathe in their scent.

Later, after raucous dinner with the other guests - pumpkin, carrots, lotus root, and udon - Yuuri curls his fingers into Viktor’s sleeve and leads him further past his room deeper into the Katsuki family’s section of the inn. The snow is still swirling down, laying down a blanket that mutes all sound, silvery moonlight pale on the wooden planks beneath their feet. His world seems to have contracted to the tug on his sleeve, the cracked skin over Yuuri’s knuckles, the way the backs of Yuuri’s fingers sometimes brush against his skin. 

They end up in a small, musty room. Set into a niche opposite a cupboard is a shrine: nestled between flower offerings and scroll paintings is a framed photograph of a small poodle, tongue lolling out happily at whoever took the photograph. Yuuri, Viktor guesses, looking down at his bowed head as he kneels before the shrine. There’s a small, ceramic bowl filled with sand in front of the photograph, burned-down incense sticks populating it like a stunted, red forest.

“This was my dog,” whispers Yuuri, as he draws a few more sticks out of a long, lacquered box. “Her name was - Vicchan.” 

He lights the incense sticks. Viktor doesn’t dare interrupt, kneels gingerly down next to Yuuri. Yuuri gives him the ghost of a smile.

“She was killed in the attack.” Yuuri drives the sticks into the sand, and folds his hands back into his lap. “They say ... they say she got loose and was running to the shore.”

 _She was looking for me_ , he doesn’t say, but Viktor hears him anyway. 

He reaches over, pries Yuuri’s hands apart, and holds them in his own. They kneel there, quiet, while the snow continues falling outside.

Life here is fragile, resilient, beautiful. Viktor had forgotten about that, within the grim, chrome walls of the Shatterdome. 

  


*

  


The thing is, he can feel the seconds ticking down, away on the War Clock in Hong Kong. The events have been coming closer and closer together. 

“Minako told me that you trained in using the _kodachi_ ,” Viktor says the day after he discovers the old weapons store in the dojo. 

Yuuri flicks him a look from under his eyelashes, catches the bamboo training sword Viktor tosses him. 

“I haven’t used one in a long time,” admits Yuuri, testing its balance. “The _tsuba_ ’s kind of ...” He tugs at it gently, and it crumbles apart. “Plastic.” 

Viktor laughs. “Whoops.” He likes how Yuuri sounds, evaluating the practice sword. Absently confident, sure of what he knows.

He drapes himself over Yuuri’s shoulders, relishes how Yuuri stiffens for but a second before relaxing into him. It’s good. That’s good.

“Let’s spar!”

Yuuri tenses all over. When Viktor turns Yuuri’s face to him, there’s a - his face is scrunched up. 

“You’re ready,” he says, poking Yuuri in the side. There’s no spare flesh to him now, but that’s not really the point anymore. “I promise you, Yuuri. You’re _ready_.”

He waits three inhales and exhales, Yuuri’s back rising and pushing into Viktor’s chest thrice, before he breathes, “Okay. ...okay.” 

Yuuri finds them what he says are competition-standard _shinai_ , and then they’re facing each other across the mats. 

The leather of the handle is still soft and pliable in Viktor’s grip, the sword lying perfectly balanced and steady in his hands. 9 paces away from him, Yuuri has his eyes closed, his breathing only slightly uneven. 

He notes Yuuri tensing, and slides into guard as Yuuri comes slide-stepping across the mat to him. It’s a rapid series of strike-counterstrike, quick steps down one way, then back up the other, circling round each other; strike, feint, thrust, deflect, strike again. They come together, leap apart, pace around each other - the only sounds in the dojo their gasping breaths and pants; the slide and tap of their feet against the tatami; the dull thwack of their bamboo blades clashing. 

Then he catches Yuuri’s eyes _glinting_ at him, before Yuuri’s sliding diagonally back and around, blade swinging sharply round to lay flat against Viktor’s flank. 

Viktor’s blade rests lightly against Yuuri’s shoulder. 

They stare at each other, breathing heavily. 

Yuuri’s eyes are wide, and his mouth is trembling faintly. 

So Viktor does the only thing he can think of: he breaks the tension with a laugh, and a “ _Wow_!” that’s not entirely contrived. 

It’s okay - it’s good, though, because Yuuri’s mouth firms up, and tilts. 

“Yeah,” he says, stepping back and lowering his sword to knee level. 

“Best of three?” Viktor asks. “Any style, this time round.”

The ghost of a real smile flits across Yuuri’s face, before he does actually grin at Viktor and says, “Sure. I think I saw a naginata somewhere in there.”

So they change weapons: Viktor gets a sword that’s got more of the heft and reach he’s used to; Yuuri gets a naginata, and for the rest of the afternoon it's like they're ghost drifting without ever having performed a neural handshake. 

He suspects Yuuri knows what he's doing. But Yuuri isn't stopping him. 

  


*

  


It comes to an end when they’re eating lunch alone at home, bento packed for them by Hiroko-san, the noon newscast on in the background.

The television buzzes with static, before the station resets to a scene out of Viktor’s - well, his memories. 

Sydney Harbour: a Category Four Kaiju attack; the Opera House squashed; a huge part of their Wall of Life crumpling before the onslaught. The Australian Air Forces rallying around Ina Bauer, part of the latest and last range of top-of-the-line Jaegers. Production completed just before UN started defunding the Jaeger Programme. It seems like the planes are about as effective as gnats on a buffalo; Ina Bauer’s the only thing standing in the way of Australia’s annihilation.

Viktor resurfaces from his thoughts, turns his head, and a shot of adrenaline fizzles down his spine.

Yuuri’s completely frozen, chopsticks loose in his fingers. His face is leached of colour, lower lip caught in his teeth, eyes ... completely glazed over, like he’s lost somewhere Viktor can’t _reach_. 

He tries, anyway, pulls the chopsticks away and puts them down on the table - Yuuri barely twitches - and kneels up to take Yuuri’s face in his hands.

“Yuuri. _Yuuri_ ,” he says, “Come back. Come back here.” 

No response; Yuuri’s breathing is shallow. 

“Oh god,” says Viktor to himself, to Yuuri. “What should I do? Where’s everyone? Yuuri, should I kiss you or something?”

There’s a hitch in Yuuri’s breath, and Viktor takes it as a sign from god, and leans in. He gets within hair’s breadth of Yuuri’s mouth when Yuuri - _breaks_. It’s better than what came before, anyway, so he gathers Yuuri - wobbling mouth, uncontrollable tears and all - into his lap. 

“Don’t - don’t say I told you so,” Yuuri sobs into his neck. Viktor opens his mouth, and closes it again when Yuuri snaps vehemently, “No! I know, you don’t have to - I know you were thinking it.” 

Yuuri pulls away, still caught loosely in the circle of Viktor’s arms, Viktor's hands slipping down Yuuri’s back to land on his hips. “The Wall’s useless, isn’t it.” 

Viktor looks at Yuuri: his red eyes, his stuffed-up nose, tears still leaking from the corners of his eyes. Pulls him close again, heart aching, rests his own cheek against Yuuri’s soft, soft hair. 

“Yeah,” he breathes, “It is.” 

“Okay,” says Yuuri quietly. “Okay, I’ll go back.”

  


*

  


The PPDC moves fast, once Viktor breaks his radio silence and sends them a message.

Yakov yells at him, stares at Yuuri, shrinking in the background of their video call, and then ominously promises to have his vengeance on Viktor before hanging up unceremoniously on them.

Three days later, he sends a helicopter and a battered, bruised, and extremely hostile Yuri.

  


  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has slightly run away from me. i thought it'd be like, 8k max.

  
  
  


In the three days that they’ve been given, Yuuri stops eating, stops sleeping, just — stops. 

His family all give him worried looks, tempt him with snacks and katsudon, chivvy him into the onsen, and in Mari’s case, make Yuuri do more chores with her. Viktor waits for the break, for one or all of them to turn to him and turn _on_ him, but it doesn’t come. When all that Yuuri does is pick listlessly at his food, doze fitfully, come from a soak looking like his joints have all locked up, and quietly comply with Mari’s orders - when this is all Yuuri does, they look at Viktor helplessly, silently, and Viktor feels something in his chest turn over, sour and warm. 

On the third afternoon, they’re in Yuuri’s room, packing — well, Yuuri’s packing. He’s mechanical about it. Retrieve. Fold. Roll. Not particularly paying any attention to what he’s putting into his duffel. Viktor has to put a hand on his wrist when he sees the pink nightshirt (“Save a Horse! Ride a Mustang!” - some kind of obscure Japanese pop culture reference entirely lost on Viktor) that Yuuri’s woodenly shaking out. 

“Yuuri,” he says in his piss-poor Japanese. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Blinking slowly, like he’s surfacing from deep sleep, Yuuri turns to look at him, then down at the shirt in his hands. He drops it in horror. “Argh! This - it’s - Mari- _nee_ -” 

Viktor laughs a little - it’s nice to see any sign of life from Yuuri. 

“I’m sure,” he says, and reaches out to cup his palm around the curve of Yuuri’s cheek. It warms under his touch. “Come on, let’s go get some air.”

They walk to the castle, avoiding the town, and climb up to the highest parapets. Yuuri leans his arms, folded, on the broad top of the wall. His eyes are closed and he’s breathing evenly, controlled: long on the inhale, longer on the exhale. A classic calming technique. Viktor wonders how fast his heart would be going, if he were to press his fingers to Yuuri’s pulse point. 

The late afternoon light spills across the ocean to Hasetsu, soupy gold and orange. He can pick out the Wall from here, already the height of a man, the cluster of food stalls, the building that Minako’s studio is in, the local high school, the old record shop. 

“It’s beautiful,” he says quietly, not sure if he’s talking to himself or to Yuuri. 

Next to him, Yuuri hums, and opens his eyes. His eyelashes are gilded in the low sun, his cheeks sharpened by the throw of light. “It is.” 

They stay there in quiet companionship until the sun abruptly sets, the way winter suns do.

Back home, Viktor hand-feeds Yuuri his katsudon at dinner, forcing that pink to his cheeks and the spoons into his mouth through the flustered flailing. In his peripheral vision, Hiroko-san is smiling, small-mouthed and eyes shining. 

In Yuuri’s room, later, Yuuri looks around, before sighing. He casts the mostly-full duffel bag a look before shrugging, face going blank. “I think that’s all I’ll need.” 

Viktor steps around the clutter on the floor to Yuuri’s desk, and picks up a framed photograph of his family. “Really?” 

The small poodle from the shrine’s in the centre of the photograph, a young Yuuri’s arms wrapped around it. There’s a silence, and Viktor wonders if he’s misstepped, the way Yuuri’s eyes are suddenly wet. 

“No,” Yuuri gets out, voice thin. “I suppose not.” 

He takes the photograph and wraps it in a towel, before putting it into his duffel bag. 

Yuuri’s parents show up with packaged snacks and small bottles of shochu by the armload, and shove it into Yuuri’s duffel for him, chattering incomprehensibly and cheerfully at Yuuri, who’s smiling tremulously and fondly at them. Viktor puts his hand in the small of Yuuri’s back; Yuuri presses back into his touch. 

Even later, Yuuri pulls Viktor into his bed with him.

“Just, stay here; stay with me, that’s all,” he breathes, as Viktor braces himself, frozen, over the side of the creaky little bed, and Viktor cannot help but fall in, to fold his arms around Yuuri and breathe with him: long on the inhale; longer on the exhale. 

 

*

 

Dawn breaks. The helicopter comes in three hours. 

They have breakfast together with the whole family, a full Japanese breakfast minus the fish. Mari’s smoking like a chimney, and her deadpan jokes are rough around the edges. Viktor is grateful for them, anyway. They go for one last early morning soak, and then it’s time to go. There’s no space for a helicopter in the close streets around the onsen, so they have to go to the high school baseball field to be picked up.

Viktor watches Yuuri’s gaze catches on the most innocuous of things as they make their way out of the inn: empty corners, patches of tatami and corners that have unfathomable significance. He grazes the backs of his fingers along the door to Vicchan’s shrine, runs his fingertips along the half-curtains to the kitchen, presses his palms to the weathered wood panelling of the doorframe. Yuuri saying goodbye to the inn; to Hasetsu. Viktor’s heart clenches when he realises this. _I’ll bring him back_ , he promises silently. _No matter what._

 

*

Mari drives them to the high school baseball field in Viktor’s rented jeep; she’s promised to return it for him. Toshiya-san and Hiroko-san come along, and they pick Minako up along the way. 

The helicopter’s already there when they arrive. It’s engine is still running, the cockpit occupied, and a small and angry blond boy standing arms akimbo in front of the door.

“You!” Yuri Plisetsky shouts across the field. “You fucking flake!” 

Viktor huffs out a laugh. “Ah, Yuuri. This is Yakov’s vengeance, I think.”

“Mm,” says Yuuri distractedly, as he’s hauled by his parents into a hug. 

“ _Hai, hai_ ,” he’s saying to them, that fond and tremulous smile audible in his voice, as they talk over each other to him. 

Yuri comes stomping across to them. There’s a bandage across one side of his face, and bruises peeking out over the collar of his shirt - not the fun kind, either. He’s noticeably favouring one leg as he stomps, but hell hath no fury like one half of Ina Bauer scorned, and his eyes are alight with fifteen-year-old fury. 

It’s quite piquant, really. 

“Is that him?” Yuri asks roughly, jabbing a finger at Yuuri. 

Yuuri straightens up from where Mari’s put him in a headlock and is nagging at him, and smiles faintly at Yuri. 

For the first time, it seems Yuri’s noticed the nature of the gathering. A dusting of pink appears across the top of his cheeks. Viktor raises his eyebrows at him. 

To Yuri’s credit, all he does is throw his hands up in the air and say, “We leave in fifteen,” before stomping back to the helicopter. 

“Is that Yuri Plisetsky of Ina Bauer?” Mari asks, excitement barely tamped down by the imminent departure of her younger brother. 

“Yeah, and he’s a little asshole,” Viktor tells her. 

She laughs. “Still cute, though.”

Yuuri makes a face, and pivots away from his conversation with Minako. He shoulders his duffel expectantly. 

Before they cross the field to the helicopter, Toshiya-san and Hiroko-san bow shallowly to Viktor, arresting his steps. 

“Please,” they say, faces hidden, “Take care of yourselves.” 

Yuuri’s eyes are wet again, and his hands are covering his mouth.

“Of course we will,” Viktor says, bowing back, before taking Yuuri by the arm and pulling him away. Yuuri stumbles along with him, breath coming unevenly.

The distance between the farewell party and the helicopter is, in real terms, perhaps about half a kilometre. In relative time, it seems to go by too quickly. 

“Finally!” Yuri exclaims, when Viktor throws his duffel into the helicopter and follows it in.

The pilot is unfamiliar to Viktor, and is giving Yuri a fond look that Viktor eyes suspiciously.

“Ah, Otabek,” Yuuri says unexpectedly, when he climbs in behind Viktor. 

“Katsuki,” says Otabek, giving Yuuri a stoic nod. “Nikiforov.” 

Yuuri turns to Viktor. “Well, we’re in safe hands for now.”

“Of course you are!” Yuri yells. “You think Yakov would let someone he didn’t trust fly me to buttfuck, nowhere?”

They wince, but Otabek is unflinching, and merely gives them a thumb’s up, before engaging the door lock and getting ready for take-off.

“Ah, I see almost getting yourselves killed hasn’t improved your attitude any, Yura,” Viktor says lightly, buckling himself in.

“Almost _being killed_?! We beat that kaiju’s ass, old man! What have _you_ been doing?”

Yuuri turns, ignoring them all, and waves out the small window to the small figures in the distance, waving a white banner and waving back frantically. Viktor decides to take his lead and ignores Yuri too, draping himself over Yuuri’s back - ignoring his little ‘oof!’ of surprise - and waving along as they lift off, until the figures drop out of sight, and Yuuri goes limp under him.

 

*

 

It’s mizzling when they enter Hong Kong airspace; the sky a uniform grey and the hulking whale’s back of the Shatterdome a blurry mass through the fine, persistent rain. 

There are three figures waiting just beyond the edge of the helipad, an umbrella spreading broad and black over their heads. Lilia Baranovskaya glows in the gloom, the bright yellow of her quilted jacket almost like a homing beacon. Next to her stands Yakov, his omnipresent hat tilted back over iron-grey hair. And the last person, Viktor doesn’t recognise. She’s diminutive, a plain sort of prettiness about her, clutching a clipboard to her chest. 

Moisture rapidly gathers on his face and beads on his coat as he gets out of the helicopter, bag over shoulder. He turns around to offer Yuuri a hand down. 

Behind him, he hears a choked-off sound.

Before him, Yuuri freezes, hand in his, half-ducked out of the helicopter. 

“Yuuko-chan...” Viktor hears him whisper to himself, before Yuuri’s weight presses briefly into his palm as Yuuri lands and straightens back up.

Clipboard-bearing Yuuko darts forward and slaps Yuuri across the face, too fast for anyone to react. 

“Nishigori!” Lilia shouts, behind them.

At the same time, Yuuri yelps, “Yuu-chan!” eyes wide and looking so shocked Viktor has to look away and contain himself. 

“You,” says Yuuko levelly. “You are in so much trouble, Katsuki Yuuri.” 

“I like the sound of that,” Yuri comments, as he saunters past them.

Yuuri’s head turns to follow Yuri’s passage, eyebrows furrowed. “Why does he ...” 

“Hate you so much?” Viktor finishes for him, then raises his hands in a shrug. “Don’t worry too much about it. Yura’s just at that age. You know.”

“Yuuri doesn’t know,” Yuuko tells him, voice sweet and eyes deadly. “He never went through that stage. I think this was his teenage rebellion.”

“Yuu- _chan_ ,” Yuuri says again, like a broken record, but this time he sounds hurt. “You know it’s not like that.”

“Okay,” Viktor interrupts, glancing over at Lilia and Yakov, who’re starting to look damp around the edges and annoyed by it. “Touching as this reunion is, shall we continue inside?”

While Yuuri’s still blinking, Yuuko’s already turning on her heel and marching back. Over her shoulder, she says, “Yes. Come on, your quarters are ready.” 

When they draw level with the waiting pair, Yakov glares at him and Lilia takes Yuuri by the arm. 

“Yuuri,” he hears Lilia purr, “You’ve been sorely missed.” 

Viktor’d try to save Yuuri, really, but he’s got his own problems in the shape of an extremely grumpy old Russian man.

 

*

 

The tunnel-like corridors and burnished, chrome interior of the Shatterdome seem alien and strange now, even if Viktor hasn’t been away that long. The walk to his old room is dream-like; it must be stranger for Yuuri, he thinks, who had left in such a desperate rush and for longer. He wonders where Yuuri’ll be rooming - hopes, a fizz of warmth bubbling up in his chest suddenly, that Yuuko will have seen fit to put him in with Viktor. 

It’s close enough - Yuuri’s been graduated out of the training dormitories and put in the room opposite Viktor’s. Through the plexiglass panel set into all the doors, they can peek into each other’s rooms. Viktor spend an inordinate amount of time making faces at Yuuri through his, whether or not Yuuri is actually paying attention to him. He unpacks quickly, in between pulling funny faces at Yuuri’s back, stowing away the clothes he’d brought with him to Hasetsu and pouring what he’d accumulated there onto his bed. He’ll sort it out later. 

Viktor bounds out of his door and in through Yuuri’s.

“Yuuri!” He says, feeling manic, and flings himself over Yuuri’s bent back. “I missed you!”

Yuuri grunts, dipping lower before straightening slowly back up. “Viktor, you could’ve broken my back.” 

Pouting against his neck, Viktor squeezes him tighter. “Nonsense, you’re stronger than that.”

The curve of Yuuri’s smile when he turns his head slightly almost undoes Viktor. “I have my limits, Viktor.” Then he’s wriggling out of Viktor’s grip, cheeks flushed. “I’m hungry.” 

“Oh!” Viktor says, and grabs his hand. “Okay, let’s go get lunch. It’s about time anyway.”

They’re ambushed by a howling mass of limbs when they step out of Yuuri’s room. 

“Wha -” Viktor barely manages to get out, before he makes out a “ _Yuuri oji-san_ ” in the racket. Yuuri’s basically engulfed in a knee-high tide of pink and red. He looks simultaneously terrified and bemused. Yuuko’s hurrying down the corridor in the distance, and now that Viktor’s looking closer, the three monkeys chattering at top-speed and tugging at Yuuri bear a strong resemblance to her.

“Ah,” Viktor realises. “The Nishigori triplets.” 

He’d heard of them, precocious children who could drift more seamlessly than Rangers twice their age. Four times their age, even. The pieces slowly start to fall together in his head, but before the final puzzle piece can click into place, they stop and turn as one to look at him. It’s eery, how synchronised they are. Less eerie, but unsettling nonetheless, is how their eyes are all big, glassy, and shining with a mania Viktor recognises. 

“ _Nishigori-tachi_ ,” Yuuri cuts in - his knight in shining armour - and says something in Japanese too quickly for Viktor to catch.

The girls pout, backing off just in time for their mother to swoop down on them and bear them away to a chorus of protests, more howls, and promises of revolution. Yuuko’s apologies are barely audible over their voices. 

“...Wow,” breathes Viktor. “How have I never met them before?”

 

*

 

Yuuri’s still laughing at him when Viktor pushes the doors to the canteen open.

The buzz of people drops, and then starts up again, louder than ever. 

“Vitya!”

Viktor looks around, following Yuuri as he inches his way into the room, shoulders up. Viktor’s not sure how to help with that, other than to just stay by his side. 

“ _Vitya!_ ” The other half of Ina Bauer, the red-headed demon of Russia, bellows into his ear out of fucking nowhere. 

His ears ringing, Viktor turns and smiles pleasantly. “Mila Babicheva, what a pleasure.” 

“Pleasure my _arse_ , you smug fuck,” Mila says cheerfully, fingers firmly in the scruff of Yuri’s neck. “Introduce us! Come on!” 

“Oh, yes.” Viktor tugs Yuuri forward. “This is Katsuki Yuuri.”

Yuuri gives Mila a half-bow, his fringe falling over his eyes. “H-hi.” 

“Ah, you’re so cute,” says Mila, smiling genuinely. “Hi. I can see why Viktor wants to keep you.”

Yuuri splutters; Viktor laughs, and Yuri -

“Tch,” Yuri says, scowl twisting his face. “I’m going to go get a table.” 

He stomps off. Viktor looks to Mila for a hint - Yura’s never been ... _friendly_ , but even this is a little beyond the pale for him - sees the way her lips curl in amusement, like she’s tucking a secret into the corners of her smile, and decides to let her keep it. 

Especially when Mila gets a tray of food for Yuri. Drift partner or not, she wouldn’t do that for the boy if she didn’t think he had a legitimate reason for his behaviour. 

It persists throughout lunch; Yuri sneers, scoffs, snipes at Yuuri - at the both of them, but his eyes burn into Yuuri no matter who he’s insulting. Yuuri, in all his grace and elegance, eats his steamed pork patty and rice steadily, tries to ignore Yuri, and makes conversation with Mila and Viktor. 

Mila tries, her eyes apologetic on Yuuri. “Hey, brat, you’re getting hangry. Shut up and eat your food.” 

Yuri does not shut up and eat his food. “Whatever, baba. I’m not like that pig over there.”

Next to Viktor, Yuuri gets stiffer, and pokes at his food. 

“ _Hey_ , Yuri Plisetsky,” Viktor says, slamming his hands down on the table top, leaning into Yuri’s space. “What’s your problem?” 

Yuri narrows his eyes back at Viktor; Viktor feels the palms of his hands _itching_. There’s a rustling of cloth next to him, and then Yuuri’s hand lands on his knee, his fingers pressing warningly into his flesh. 

“He’s just a kid,” Yuuri murmurs into his ear, but not quietly enough for Yuri _not_ to hear. “It’s oka—” 

“I’M _JUST A KID_?” Yuri shrieks, shooting up to his feet. The chatter around them barely dips in volume. “Fuck you, you - you _cowardly pig_! You know my Kaiju kill count?”

Yuuri’s shrinking back now, only saved from falling off the bench by Viktor’s bracing arm. Mila’s on her feet too, now, hands already reaching out to Yuri. The boy slaps them away. 

A be-hatted shadow falls across the table. “Yuri. Enough.” Yakov’s voice is rough and terrible, authority curling round the words. 

Everything stills, then Yuri spins away, a growl crackling in the back of his throat. “There’s only room for one _Yuri_ here, pig, and it’s gonna be _me_.” 

 

*

 

The soaring roof of the hangar and the muted quality of the sunlight that filters through the roof panels has always put Viktor in the mind of the great European cathedrals. As a small boy, he’d gone to St Isaac’s for mass every week, worshipping a god he no longer believes in. 

This is what he believes in, now: the echoing voices of the techs punctuated by the brassy sounds of Jaeger maintenance; the sturdy resilience of the Jaegers themselves rearing up in their bays; the laughter surrounding the LOCCENT Commander as he moves through the hangar.

“Oh,” Yuuri murmurs next to him, subdued in the wake of _Yuri_ and Yakov’s gruff apology. “Ciao Ciao.” 

Viktor stifles a laugh - Celestino gives the occasional lecture at the Jaeger Academy, and acts as mentor to a few students. Ciao Ciao is the nickname that one of his oldest mentees gave him, though nobody is quite sure who. 

“He mentored you, Yuuri?”

“Yeah, me and ...” Yuuri trails off distractedly, eyes searching the cluster of people around Celestino. 

A short, slim figure breaks away from the group. “YUURI!” it shouts, waving enthusiastically.

“PHICHIT-KUN!” Yuuri calls back, waving just as hard.

A completely irrational pang of jealousy goes through Viktor. 

Phichit jogs up to them; like the cheshire cat, his grin is the first thing to be noticed. 

“Hi, oh my god, it’s Viktor Nikiforov!”

“Hi to you too, Phichit, I’m doing fine, thank you,” Yuuri says drily. 

Viktor chokes back a laugh: this is a side of Yuuri he’s only seen in glimpses before. He wants to see it more; wants to know Yuuri inside out. 

Phichit flaps his hand at Yuuri, eyes still trained on Viktor. “I’m glad to hear that. But, seriously, Viktor Nikiforov! You’ve been holding out on me, girl.” 

“Hi,” Viktor says, giving Phichit the old two-finger salute and a wink. “Don’t blame Yuuri, I’ve only just found him. So, how do the two of you know each other?” 

Yuuri’s muttering, “ _Girl_ ,” underneath his breath, but he looks up at that. “Phichit’s my psych analyst ... we trained together too.”

Phichit smiles up at Viktor, but there’s a hard look in his eyes now.

“Speaking of which,” he says to Yuuri, whilst still looking at Viktor critically. “You need a session.” 

Yuuri sighs, and sneaks a glance at Viktor. This, somehow, makes Viktor relax a little. He sees Chris on the other side of the hangar, near Macca’s bay, anyway, spanner in perpetual motion around his knuckles.

“Go on,” he says, “I’m going to make sure Macca’s perfect before introducing her to you.”

“Jumping the gun a little, aren’t we,” he hears Phichit hiss to Yuuri, as they part ways. 

He doesn’t hear what Yuuri says in reply. 

 

*

 

Yakov seems to agree with Phichit. Eyes suspicious, he insists on the Kwoon trial. Despite sending the helicopter for them, despite knowing what Viktor intended and had been working towards, despite defending Yuuri against Yuri. Typical Yakov. 

The Kwoon is fuller than he’s ever seen it - the walls are lined four people deep. Jaeger Rangers seeded through the audience: Yuuko and her husband holding back the triplets; the Canadians; the Crispino twins and their pet tech. Mila and Yuri, standing next to the door. 

“He can’t be worth your time, Vitya,” Yuri says angrily. At least he’s quiet this time. 

Viktor pauses. “...Can’t be?

Ah, Yura,” he breathes, and moves to ruffle Yuri’s hair. 

Yuri’s cheeks are flushed, and he blocks Viktor’s hand with his arm. “Just go and fail already.”

“I’m afraid,” says Viktor, “I’m going to have to disappoint you again.”

He saunters, feeling more at home in his skin and calmer in the Kwoon than he has in a long time, to the sparring mats. Yakov and Lilia stand at the head of the mats, faces impassive. Yuuri’s next to them, bare toes flexing against the floor. He’s dressed, not in a gi, but in a regulation tank-top and uniform trousers, his arms bare to the wrist, where sparring gloves cover the knobbly knuckles Viktor has seen cracked with dry cold. 

Their eyes catch and hold, and Viktor feels - very aware of his body: every inch of skin, crackling with nerves; the creak in his joints as he moves, the tensing and relaxing of his muscles. Yuuri bends down on one knee, still holding Viktor’s gaze, to pick something up. This is intimate, but simultaneously, intensely performative; they both know what’s at stake here. 

Viktor brings his arm up; the bo staff Yuuri tossed him lands square in his palm. 

It’s a pity that Kwoon trials mandate the use of bo staffs; he would love to show all the gawkers and all the doubters how well they move together even with different weapons. 

“Are you ready?” Yuuri asks, stepping onto the mat. The way he weighs the bo staff in his hands is familiar and dear. 

The answering smile on Yuuri’s face when Viktor tilts his head to the audience and grins at him makes warmth spread out from his abdomen all over. “You mean, are _they_ ready?”

The moment hangs in the tense silence, then - they move: sliding their left feet back together, grips widening, bo tucked ready by their slides. 

Viktor waits, and then Yuuri is bearing down on him, bo spinning, spinning, spinning — their bo crack together, overhead strike on a block; Viktor changes his grip, whips Yuuri’s bo to the side and, shifting his weight, sweeps his back leg around and tries to trip Yuuri, who leaps and tries for a side-strike that Viktor catches, pressing Yuuri off balance so that he goes tumbling to the floor -

“One,” Viktor tells him, the tip of his bo pressing gently into Yuuri’s shoulder.

Quick as lightning, Yuuri rolls to his knees and brings his bo round to rest, light as a kiss, on the outside of Viktor’s calf. 

A burst of laughter comes from the direction of the Canadians, and Yuuri bares his teeth at Viktor. “One.” A thrill shivers its way up Viktor’s spine. 

It would be a lie to say that the rest of the spar blurs by; every minute, every second, every _lub_ and _dub_ of Viktor’s heart in his ears will probably remain seared into his soul. 

_Two_ , comes when Yuuri executes a gorgeous behind the back spin to catch Viktor behind the knees, when Viktor had managed to get him turned around. 

Four, five moves later, Viktor pokes Yuuri in the still-soft flesh beneath his belly button. Yuuri flushes harder, mouth moving momentarily into a moue, before attempting to ungracefully smack Viktor in the face with his staff. Viktor blocks, and they leap apart. 

Then Yuuri’s spinning towards him again, lovely and light of limb as Viktor side steps, sweeps at his feet and he jumps, bo already singing towards Viktor’s head. 

They dance around each other, kata started and discarded, completed by the other. Their bo catch, catch again; Viktor pressing his advantage across the mat, bo striking hard up, down, side, side, up, and then Yuuri does something complicated - something from a _naginata_ kata, and Viktor’s off-balance, breaking his fall and going cross-eyed at the bo thrust just short of the space between his eyes. 

He’s managed to bring his bo round to rest against Yuuri’s hip. The air feels like _soup_ between the two of them; Yuuri’s pupils are blown wide, his eyes dark and his lips parted slightly as he pants through them. They’re peeling, Viktor notes absently. 

Both he and Yuuri are breathing hard, chests heaving. The roar in the Kwoon filters slowly back into his consciousness, and Yuuri’s too, it seems, judging from the surprise creeping over his face. Yuuri draws back, flipping his bo absently up behind him, before offering Viktor a hand up. 

Viktor feels like his face might split in two from how hard he’s smiling. He takes Yuuri’s hand, and pulls himself up and right into Yuuri, clapping the hand holding his bo round Yuuri and hugging him close. He can feel Yuuri trembling, slightly, against him, and clutches him tighter, turns his head into Yuuri’s neck. The roaring chatter in the room flows around them like currents in the sea. 

“Thank you,” he whispers against the sweat-salty skin of Yuuri’s neck, unsure of whether Yuuri’s heard him or not.

Yuuri pulls back slightly, and opens his mouth.

A sharp whistle cuts through the noise, and cuts Yuuri off. 

He tries to start away from Viktor, but Viktor holds on doggedly.

Yakov’s taking his thumb and middle finger out of his mouth when they look over. 

“I think,” Lilia says chillingly, eyes sweeping in clear challenge across the Kwoon. “That the outcome of today’s match is quite clear. You are all dismissed.”

A trainee comes to take their staffs from them, and Yuuri politely thanks her.

"Well, Yuratchka?" Viktor says, as they make their sweaty way towards him and the southern exit. "Satisfied?" 

The boy flushes and turns sharply away, marching out of the door.

Mila sighs, rolls her eyes, and strolls after him. “He’s ... he’ll get over it. Trauma, being fifteen, you know. The works.” 

“Vik _tor_ ,” Yuuri says reprovingly. He’s looking in the direction Yuri stormed off in, something wistful in his gaze. “He’s so young. Stop it.”

“Ah, my Yuuri.” Viktor pulls him closer. “I’m sorry, it’s just — he makes me so _angry_ when —”

They’re interrupted again by the click of Lilia’s boots coming up behind them. Turning, Viktor sees that she’s smiling, ice thawing slightly, at Yuuri.

“Well,” Yakov says gruffly, “Congratulations. Now for the real trial.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as usual, I know nothing about martial arts and have fairly extensively engaged the services of Sir Google. all egregious errors remain solely my own. I'm very sad about not managing to work in more references to RL figure skaters. my eyes are so very dry and work tomorrow is a depressing prospect.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you'll note that there will now be ... 4 chapters, where this was initially intended to be like. a one-shot. it started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this? /despairs
> 
> anyway. I cut this chapter off at ... the point at which it ends, and am posting it because I feel really badly about how long it's been.

  
  
  


It takes at least 24 hours to schedule an initial neural link. The hangar needs to be cleared, LOCCENT needs to set up, customise the programmes to the prospective copilots’ psychological profiles, check the failsafes. Nerves, in general, need to be settled. 

So after their showers in the communal bathroom, where the resemblance to Yuutopia begins and ends at _communal_ , Viktor introduces Yuuri to MACCA (full name: MACCA CHI; nickname: Maccachin). 

“I have a surprise for you!” is what he tells Yuuri, sliding his hands over Yuuri’s eyes from behind. The faint smell of yuzu rises from Yuuri’s damp hair and shower-warm skin; sharp, tangy, comforting. 

Yuuri leans back into him and deadpans, “I hate surprises.” 

“You’ll like this one,” Viktor promises, and starts them off in a shuffle towards the lifts at the end of the corridor. Their progress is slow, with Viktor’s hands still wrapped around Yuuri’s face and his longer stride knocking their legs together every few steps.

Yuuri puts up with this good-naturedly until they almost trip over into the lift, when it arrives. The Shatterdome, at least a decade old and lacking in funding, has lifts that always stop an inch above or below level with the actual floor. It’s hard to compensate for this when blinded, Viktor will concede, but he’s also known for his lateral thinking, so —

“I know!” He says, excitedly, after pushing the button that will get them to Maintenance Deck 2. “I’ll carry you there!”

“Or,” Yuuri says drily and reaching up to curl his fingers around Viktor’s forearm, now pressed against the top half of his face, and pull it away. “You could just let me see where we’re going, so we don’t die before we get there.”

The lift judders to a stop before Viktor can retort, and the doors slide open on the long, open corridor that curves around half of the hangar. 

“Oh.” Yuuri’s voice is small, and his eyes are wide with realisation. 

They drop an inch to the metal floor without incident, and Viktor leads them along to the left. Maintenance Deck 2 is a catwalk, opening out at regular intervals onto decks that jut out over empty space, for access to the top third of a Jaeger. 

“There she is.” Viktor’s voice comes out hushed. MACCA stands strong and sturdy, her frame bulkier than the newer lines of Jaegers. She’s old, but in the bright noon sunshine pouring into the hangar, the burnished bronze of her casing glows. “Our Maccachin.”

Next to him, Yuuri makes a low, incomprehensible noise, and takes a step forward, hand twitching at his side. Viktor reaches out to take that hand in his own, sliding his fingers between Yuuri’s and holding fast. Yuuri glances up at him, fast, before tugging them forward, all the way to the edge of the deck. It’s as close to Maccachin as they can get, for now. 

“I’d always ...” Yuuri trails off, before folding down to sit, his knees pulled up before him. Viktor is pulled along with him, and he goes willingly.

“When I was very young,” Yuuri starts again. “I went with my parents on a holiday to Tokyo.”

Viktor stills the swinging of his legs over the deck. 

“I don’t really remember ... Mari-nee was there too, and I remember she was hugging me. Tou-chan and Kaa-chan had gone to a shrine, for the onsen, but Mari-nee took me to the playground. And then she ran to an alley, and she was hugging me. Everything was so loud. I was so scared.” 

Yuuri exhales. He’s hunched in on himself, and Viktor wants so badly to touch, to offer comfort, but something tells him that their hands, clasped together, are enough. Anything else would be too much. 

“It went right past us, you know? I could, I could hear it. I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel it. The enormity of it. The ... smell of it.” His voice cracks, and Viktor shifts nearer. “I was so scared. And then we heard such a high sound, and it got really loud and hot and dusty. Mari-nee was coughing into my hair. And ... then it was so quiet, like all of Tokyo had died.”

It’s quiet up here too, far above the busy hangar floor. Voices dissipate into the air as the sound travels up towards them. Time hangs, weightless, in the air around them. 

Soft denim rustles against hair, as Yuuri sighs and turns his face, resting on his knees, to Viktor. 

“We thought we were the only ones left. That’s the only time I ever saw Mari-nee crying.”

Viktor thinks of Mari-nee, given to leaning on the nearest vertical surface, blank-faced and lazy-lidded, a hidden, almost leonine strength resting coiled just under her skin. He thinks of a miniature version of her, holding onto her baby brother, holding the world back from her baby brother and crying. The Katsukis, it seems, are built on a silent well of strength. He reaches out with his free hand to skim his knuckles over the soft skin of Yuuri’s cheek, rests his hand on Yuuri’s knee just shy his face, their fingertips touching. 

“And then?” He prompts, voice hushed. 

Yuuri hiccups out a laugh. “And then Minako-sensei found us, and we saw Yuki-Onna.”

“Oh,” says Viktor, not sure why he’s not _more_ surprised. He wonders how Minako feels, knowing that by saving this little boy she’d set him on this path they’ve all walked, towards certain death in the name of saving humanity. Even though it’s temporally impossible, Viktor also kind of wishes it’d been Macca instead, and him who’d found Yuuri. 

Nuzzling at his fingertips, Yuuri flashes him a coy look. “Don’t worry, Macca was my favourite growing up.” 

“Don’t lie to me,” Viktor tells him sadly. “It’s okay, I can take it.”

Yuuri sits up a little, and Viktor mourns the loss of his chapped lips against Viktor’s fingers. 

“I’m not lying.” He’s flushing a faint pink now, intriguingly enough. “I used to watch all your battles.”

“Oh my god! And did you have our posters?”

The stubborn silence says it all, and Viktor recklessly flings himself over Yuuri, nearly sending them toppling off the deck and making Yuuri yelp. No matter; there’s a safety rig strung along 3 feet beneath the deck for a reason. 

“Yuuri!” He nuzzles enthusiastically into Yuuri’s neck as Yuuri laughs and splutters. “You did! Don’t worry, I’ve upgraded Macca _extensively_ , she’s better than new now. And, oh! I only got to start working on this when we got back, but luckily I’d always thought it was stupid we don’t transfer enough of our combat training in the Kwoon to Jaeger weaponry design, so I had a _bo_ made, but we can easily modify it so it’s a _naginata_ , would you like that?” 

He loves this look on Yuuri’s face, the way surprise breaks open like dawn over Hasetsu to happiness. 

“I —” Yuuri starts.

“Hey! Lovebirds!” Chris’s voice echoes up towards them. He’s a blond-topped speck standing at the feet of Maccachin. Viktor wants to drop his boot onto his big, stupid, curly head. “Let’s party!”

Yuuri’s gone quiet next to him.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Viktor says, arms drawing tighter where they’re looped around Yuuri’s shoulders.

“Do _you_ want to?” Yuuri asks. His shoulders have gone tight, and his expression closed off again.

They’re still regrouping, finding out how to be Viktor-and-Yuuri around other people, outside of Hasetsu. Vitkor’s never been this aware, has never devoted this much brainpower to someone whom he’s not shared brain space with before. Yet, anyway.

Viktor hesitates. “I don’t know,” he admits. 

He likes parties as much as Chris does, but he wants Yuuri to himself still.

“Well,” Yuuri says, all practical son of small business owners now. “There’s all that shochu my parents gave us. We have to finish them somehow.”

And they may as well get used to being them-around-others with the mild application of alcohol. 

  


*

  


“Viktor Nikiforov - back in action!” Chris crows from atop a table, a bottle of Kyushu’s best in clutched in his fist. 

Yurio, the world’s most adorable little stormcloud, mutters, “Pending review.” 

He, Viktor decides, is just sulky he doesn’t get to partake of delicious, World Trade Organisation protected Satsuma shochu. Viktor might be just the tiniest bit drunk.

“We usually mix this with hot water,” Yuuri murmurs into his ear. It is just the slightest bit sexy. Yuuri’s skin is very hot against his own face. 

Viktor pulls back to stare at Yuuri, aghast. “But _why_?!” 

“It brings out the sweet potato flavour.” He can’t quite parse the look on Yuuri’s face, the soft curve to his mouth and the way his eyelashes dip sweetly over his cheeks. But —

“Sweet potato?” 

There’s a gasp from behind them, and then Phichit the psych analyst says loudly, “Oh my god, I love this part.” 

Yuuri turns to give Phichit an exasperated look, from the sound of him clucking his tongue. Viktor makes a complaining sound; Yuuri should be looking at _him_. 

“No, but seriously, Yuuri,” Phichit is still talking, when Yuuri could be. “You get so worked up about shochu. I’m putting this online. Relatable publicity. As you were.”

Sighing, Yuuri turns back to Viktor, who’s swigging more of this delicious, smoky, earthy liquid from the gods. He offers Yuuri some, and watches avidly as Yuuri fits his lips around the wet mouth of the bottle, where Viktor’s lips had just been. Yuuri turns red as he catches Viktor’s gaze, and coughs as the shochu goes down the wrong way. 

“Oh my _god_ ,” Phichit whispers to himself behind them. 

“Shochu,” Yuuri coughs, and licks his lips. “Made the _proper_ way, uses sweet potatoes. From Satsuma. In Kyushu. That’s _why_ they’re called _satsuma_ imo.”

Viktor adores the bitchy lilt to Yuuri’s lecturing voice, and says so. He adores it as much, no — _more_ than shochu, which should only ever be from satsuma imo. 

“Correct,” Yuuri tells him, beaming with pride. And, oh, Viktor’d forgotten about the bottles of Chianti that the Crispinos had brought with them. No wonder Yuuri’s lips are stained a ruby, fruity red. 

“Have some more,” Viktor says to Yuuri, wondering when he can get Yuuri back to their rooms so he can find out if Yuuri tastes like what he imagines lolling about in a Tuscan villa under a clear, Italian summer night would. 

It’s disappointing when Yuuri demurs, citing something about his father, Kyushu, and a mythical beast. Or something. 

“I don’t want to be hungover tomorrow,” Yuuri adds, and oh. Point. Viktor’s drifted while hungover before, and it was not pleasant. It was like drinking the dregs of a very unpleasantly alcohol-forward wine. Maybe they should just go back now. Viktor feels he’s shared Yuuri for a respectable enough period of time. 

But then Chris pops up like the cockblocking leprechaun that he is, and drags Viktor off, while Yuuri wanders amiably, traitorously off with Phichit in another direction. 

“You’re adorable,” Chris tells him, arm locked through Viktor’s elbow. 

“I’m _happy_ ,” Viktor retorts, and stops. Wonderingly, he tries the words out again: “I’m happy,” tasting them on his tongue. 

With a gentle tug, Chris sets them in motion again. “That’s good. That’s important.”

Viktor wonders where they’re going, why they’re leaving the brightly lit centre of the room for a shadowy corner. 

“What’s important?” He asks.

“That you’re happy,” Chris says patiently.

Oh, right. Chris is a good friend. 

“Thank you,” says Chris, sounding amused. “And I’m cutting you off, because I’m such a good friend. Hey, Georgi.” 

Oh no. Chris is not such a good friend. Surely having a psych eval done whilst under the influence is in ethical breach. 

Georgi is a dark and broody presence in his shadowy corner of the room, an old fashioned glass a third full of vodka in one hand, his elbow cupped in the other. Viktor had no idea that the Shatterdome even contained alcohol receptacles as classy as an old fashioned. It was usually a much more wine-out-of-mug type place. 

“I’m glad you’ve finally come to see me, Viktor,” Georgi intones. 

“Ugh,” says Viktor. “Only ‘cos I’m _drunk_.”

Georgi turns his kohled eyes onto Chris, who’s now disengaging his arm from Viktor’s. The traitor! 

“Ish,” Viktor adds hurriedly. “Drunkish. I’m totally okay for the trial tomorrow.” 

Dramatically sipping at his vodka, Georgi swallows and says, slightly hoarse, “I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Are you still with, what’s her face, Anya?” 

Chris says quietly, “Oh no,” before Georgi’s face spasms and Viktor realises that his jab has struck all too true.

“Focus, Georgi,” Chris cuts in, just as Georgi’s clenched his fist and pressed it to his chest. “Yakov wants the eval and this is the only way you’re getting it.” 

“This can’t be right,” Viktor says. “Also, I’m so happy, Gosha. Deliriously so. Have you tried this shochu?”

He holds the bottle out. Chris takes it away from him.

“No. And you avoid me like the plague. Sometimes we have to bend the rules to save the world.”

“We had an eval half a year ago!”

“And then you disappeared and came back with a potential drift partner. Come on, Vitya. Unless you promise to come see me tomorrow morning when you’re sober.”

Viktor sulks. “Yuuri’s not a _potential_.”

Georgi tosses back the rest of his vodka. Chris has disappeared somewhere. 

“For the love of god, Vitya, I’m glad you’re happy - you should treasure it, by the way - but that doesn’t mean you’re fit for battle.”

Viktor sulks some more, sitting down on the floor and examining his nails. He wishes he still had the shochu with him. 

“Why,” Georgi is muttering to himself in Russian, “The hell that man thought this would be a good idea - _oh!_ ” 

There’s a warm, familiar presence standing over him now, and Viktor’s already looking up with a beaming smile when Yuuri says, fondly exasperated, “Why are you on the floor?” 

“Georgi wants to lock me in a room and torture me with questions.” 

“For his psych eval,” Georgi adds drily. 

Yuuri lets out a shocked noise. “He hasn’t - oh, Viktor.” Then he bends over and tucks his hands under Viktor’s arms, heaving. “Come on, silly. Sober up. I had to do mine, it’s only fair for you to do yours too.” 

This close, Viktor can smell the wine on Yuuri’s breath, and the faint hint of his citrusy shampoo. He gets up only because that way he can tug Yuuri in against him, slide his arms around Yuuri. Nosing his way into the thick, soft hair on top of Yuuri’s head, he mumbles, “Okay, okay, but you have to wait outside.” 

He’s almost forgotten about Georgi’s existence, caught up in the solid comfort of Yuuri in his arms, but then Georgi throws his arms up - so dramatic - and half-shouts, “Finally!” 

  


*

  


When Viktor wakes up the next morning, Yuuri’s already left their bed and his clock tells him that he’s slept in far later than he’s accustomed to. The cumulative effects of the shochu and the late-night grilling, he presumes. Sighing and stretching out against the body-warmed sheets, Viktor smiles to himself. Yuuri had waited for him, outside the eval room, and fallen asleep whilst Georgi pummelled Viktor with feelings until he was sober. In a manner of speaking. But Viktor had got to carry Yuuri around in the end, after all, so it all worked out in the end.

The test is in 3 hours; it’s more than enough time to find Yuuri, find food, and find their equilibrium. 

Yuuri, Viktor finds out in a deserted corner of the landing pad, doing kata with his eyes closed. His cheeks are pink from both cold and exertion, and his hair stiffening with sea-spray. Viktor stands quietly, admiring the clean, elegant lines of Yuuri’s body as he moves seamlessly, elegantly, between moves. But there’s something slightly _off_ about it, about the way Yuuri holds himself in the moments of stillness. 

He’s nervous, Viktor realises, when Yuuri opens his eyes and freezes. Why, Viktor cannot imagine; he does not doubt for a moment that their neural handshake will succeed. 

“Hey,” Viktor says, and holds his arms out. 

It’s gratifying and comforting when Yuuri walks straight into him and _clings_. 

“H-hey.” Yuuri’s voice is muffled against his front. 

“Do you want to get food?” 

A long enough silence follows, in which Viktor starts considering hand-feeding Yuuri again, but then Yuuri nods, his nose rubbing against the soft, thin cotton of Viktor’s shirt. 

Food is easily found and obtained, unlike Yuuri’s sense of ease. Yuuri eats quietly, industriously, laser focus on his steamed bowl of leafy greens and black bean ribs on rice. Viktor spoons his rice, mashed into steamed egg, into his mouth; his left hand is set on Yuuri’s right knee, thumb swiping back and forth. 

They finish in silence, and stop outside the canteen doors after clearing their trays. 

“So!” Viktor says expansively, taking hold of Yuuri’s hand. “What shall we do while we digest? Nap?” 

Yuuri twitches, and his mouth starts to get a stubborn cast to it.

“Ah-ah,” Viktor says, tightening the grip he has on Yuuri’s hand. “No exercise. You might get appendicitis, and then where would we be?” 

“In the med suites,” Yuuri says, deadpan, and then gives in. “Okay. I won’t be able to sleep though.”

“That’s fine, we’ll just have a rest, okay?”

Instead of going back to their rooms, Viktor takes them to Maintenance Deck 2 again, and they lie down on the cool metal, hands still clasped together, to gaze up at Maccachin. 

Next to him, Yuuri’s silent and inscrutable, his profile giving little away when Viktor turns to look at him. They’d revisited Vladivostok, Georgi and Viktor, barely over twelve hours ago. The memories, like freshly overturned soil, have yet to settle again, back into the heavy depths of Viktor’s mind. 

Georgi had asked him, point blank, if he was ready to — to take the risk, again. 

And Viktor had thought about the way Yuuri’d been saying goodbye to Hasetsu, and about the promise he’d made to Yuuri’s parents, and said: yes, of course, Yuuri’s taking the risk too. But I’ll make sure he goes home. 

Viktor wishes he could still feel the conviction he’d had at that point. He remembers the look Georgi had given him, a complicated one with pity and reluctance the most obvious. But Georgi had cleared him anyway. 

Sighing, Viktor closes his eyes and shakes his head briefly before rolling over to brace himself over Yuuri. 

“Viktor?” Yuuri blinks at him, wide-eyed. “What’s wrong?”

“I just wanted to be closer to you,” Viktor tells him, and flops down onto Yuuri, who _oofs_. 

“You’re heavy,” Yuuri complains, but his voice is light, and after a moment Viktor feels Yuuri’s fingers carding through his hair. 

It’s only when the techs start waking Maccachin up, running her mechanics through system checks, that they rise from the light doze that they’d fallen into. Storm clouds have stolen in over the horizon, massing over Hong Kong and turning the clear sky of the late morning into a dirty, smudged grey. 

Viktor keeps hold of Yuuri’s hand as they make their way further up through the Shatterdome to the Drivesuit Room, but they have to separate to be outfitted with their Drivesuits. Layer by layer, the Drivesuit goes on: the slick black layer meshed with electrocircuitry, then the black body armour, flexible and deceptively light, and finally the helmet, inlaid with the Pons system, integral to Jaeger combat. 

Drivesuits are customised to the represented country, or to the Rangers’ preferences. For example, Ina Bauer’s Drivesuits are angular and starkly, defiantly white, with curving spines along the gauntlets, the weaponised gauntlets on Ina Bauer in miniature. Viktor and Yuuri’s Drivesuits, however, embody the image of the classic military officer: black, sleek lines and epaulettes on the shoulders. 

“You look well in that,” Viktor says, when Yuuri joins him in the Conn-Pod. Yuuri gives him a wan smile, his face set and pale, and steps onto the command platform into the geared locks for his boots. 

“Flirting always helps with neural handshakes, of course,” Chris observes, from where he’s waiting to fasten the feedback cradle into Yuuri’s Drivesuit. “You ready, Yuuri?” 

No one’s ever ready for the first time they are actually, physically locked into the Conn-Pod controls. 

“It’ll be fine, Yuuri,” Viktor says soothingly. He wishes he could reach across the space to hold Yuuri’s hand, but they’ll be closer than that soon enough.

Next to him, Yuuri jolts when the extensions are pushed into place around his Spinal Clamp, fingers twitching in the hand controllers. He lets out a shallow, controlled breath, eyes slipping shut, as Chris pats him all over in a final check. 

“All right,” Chris says, and tilts his head up to the microphone receivers in the ceiling of the Conn-Pod. “All clear from me!” 

“Roger that,” Celestino’s voice crackles over the radio system. “Clear the pod, Tech.” 

“Good luck, boys,” Chris says, saluting them with two fingers as he goes. “Though I’m sure you won’t need it.”

The Conn-Pod door hisses shut behind him. 

“All right. Here we go.” Celestino pauses. “Systems check ...” 

“Hey, Yuuri,” Viktor says, sing-song. Yuuri’s fingers haven’t stopped trembling yet.

Yuuri opens his eyes and raises his head to look at Viktor.

“Systems are a go,” Celestino announces. “Gentlemen, we’re initiating neural link.”

Their helmets are filling up with relay gel, viscous and yellow. Viktor makes sure to hold Yuuri’s gaze.

“Let’s go find katsudon after this, huh?” 

He sees Yuuri’s eyes go wide, then crinkle at the corners and soften, before they’re obscured.

Gravity tugs at Viktor’s gut when the Conn-Pod is dropped down the shaft and locked onto Maccachin's torso.

Then:

Images whizz by, catch and go. He sees: himself through Yuuri’s eyes; Mari-nee with long hair in a long, pleated skirt coughing around a cigarette; St Petersburg spread out, a sea of yellow lights in the gloaming like a dream; the Katsuki family sipping shochu at the kotatsu in their family room; moonlit tatami on a cold winter’s night; the gardens outside Hasetsu Castle in all four seasons — 

Dimly, he hears Macca’s AI announce, _Two pilots engaged in neural bridge_ and Celestino say, “Good. Initiating Neural Handshake.” 

— there’s a small poodle in three dimensions, yipping and running towards them, now, nails tap-tapping against the wooden planks of the corridor leading to their - Yuuri’s room. _Vicchan_ , the name ricochets in their Headspace, a cry of agony that catches at something in Viktor’s chest, pulls out — dark, high waves, white tipped, oceanic undertow dragging at their legs, the deep bite of cold penetrating into his bones, into both their bones, and a sudden, atavistic fear grips Viktor, because he can’t, he _promised_ , he has to protect —

Yuuri heaves on their mind meld, suddenly. It’s the only way to describe it, that pulling pressure, telescoping them away from an arctic apocalypse 30 clicks out from Vladivostok to ... what must be Hasetsu’s old seawall. It’s disorienting, with the afterimages of that particular fight still hanging around, and their lives up til now spooled out around them; so disorienting that they tip over, just as Viktor realises what’s happening. And then the seawall pulls wider and taller like taffy, the motion dizzyingly organic, fear rising like bile in the back of his throat, their throats, and the wall is now grey, graffitied concrete, and Yuuri’s gazing up through him with wide brown eyes, wrapped in a navy blue jumper with a bright yellow Y knitted into it. 

It’s the brightest thing in this memory, which is washed out and crumbling around the edges when Viktor looks closely at the walls closing in on them. Or maybe it’s crumbling because ... because the walls are shaking, the tremors intensifying in rhythmic bursts, as something monstrously heavy lopes towards them step by terrifying step.

He fights down the fear that’s clawing its way up his guts, and steps closer to Yuuri, so small and so frightened.

“Yuuri, Yuuri,” he croons, crouching down. “Can you hear me?”

Yuuri looks around, fingers gripping the edge of his jumper, sniffs, “Mari-nee?” 

And, oh shit, that’s right. Mari’s supposed to be here. They came here from the playground. 

Viktor reaches out, unsure of what’ll happen if he touches Yuuri. 

The thuds behind them, echoing down from the mouth of the alley and the narrow space opening up to the sky, are getting louder. 

“Mari-nee, it’s getting _closer_! Where are you?” 

There’s a hint of hysteria to Yuuri’s childish voice now, and purely on impulse, Viktor tries to wrap his arms around Yuuri — who’s ducked away, slippery as an eel, running to, oh god, the mouth of the alley. 

“Yuuri!” Viktor shouts, forgetting himself, forgetting the kaiju bearing down on them, and runs after him. “Yuuri, come back! This ...” and then he slows, calming himself. “This is just a memory. A memory.” 

Time acts in weird ways, in the drift. It feels like seconds themselves are dilating, as dust and debris billow past the mouth of the alley. 

Viktor approaches Yuuri cautiously, and startles when Yuuri shrieks and takes a step back, putting a hand up, as if his tiny, pudgy palm and little fingers could do anything. 

He looks up: there’s a massive, dark shape looming out of the thick haze in front of them. His heart skips a beat, even as he’s stubbornly cognisant of the fact that this is just a memory. 

When Viktor looks back down, tears are spilling out over Yuuri’s cheeks, and his mouth is trembling in an achingly familiar way. 

Viktor doesn’t even need to think about it when he swings himself around to face Yuuri, back to the completely dead and _un_ real threat behind him. Yuuri’s small body is stiff but thankfully solid in his arms, when Viktor hugs him to his chest, hand easily cradling Yuuri’s silky head. 

“Wha-?” Yuuri whimpers in confusion. “Mari-nee? Who...?”

“Yuuri,” Viktor whispers. “This is a memory. You’re safe, it’s okay. Come on, let it go. You’re safe with me.” 

Yuuri pulls back to look at him, face scrunched up in confusion. “I don’t ... you’re ... Viktor?” 

Before Viktor can react, Yuuri’s glassy eyes flicker up and widen, and he flings his hand out again, crying, “No!”

A sucking, slithering sound makes itself known; the noises a kaiju makes with every footfall, squeezing along the skyscraper-lined roads of Tokyo. But that just reminds Viktor:

“No, Yuuri,” he lurches forward to fold Yuuri into his embrace again, holding tight even as Yuuri squirms in protest with “No, Viktor, you can’t —” It’s much easier when Yuuri’s this small, at least. “Remember how this goes?” 

This, at least, gets Yuuri to stop struggling so hard, and look up at him, eyes glassy. 

“Remember, you told me yesterday, what happens next?” 

“What ... happens ... next?” Yuuri echoes, confused. 

As if in answer, the high whine of a Mark II Ranger’s engines working at full capacity draws nearer, and Yuuri’s eyes clear, sharpening with focus.

“Oh,” Yuuri says, stilling. And then —

Everything _wrenches_ abruptly to the side, and Tokyo fuzzes away around them. 

Viktor blinks, and they’re back in the Conn-Pod, LOCCENT right in front of them. Celestino's pressed right up against the fibreglass, palm flattened against it and mouth open in a roar they can't hear. Right behind him, Yuuko has power cables, ripped out of a socket in one hand, bunched in her hands. Maccachin’s frozen in motion, right hand a finger’s breadth away from crushing LOCCENT, along with all the staffers and machinery contained within.

He feels more than hears Yuuri gasp in horror, has half a second to realise they’re _still_ in the drift despite power to Maccachin having been abruptly shut off, before urgently wrenching off his helmet and doubling over his knees, tasting bile in his mouth. 

There’s nothing to spit out, though. 

He looks to Yuuri and sees him - collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut, wrists wrenching brutally free of the hand controllers. Viktor trips hurriedly out of the locks securing his feet and skids across the few feet separating them to pull Yuuri, whose eyes are shut and whose breathing is uneven and shallow, into his lap. 

And then there's nothing to do but wait, fingers pressed to Yuuri's pulse, for someone to come and let them out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i highly recommend satsuma shochu. 
> 
> next! the battle of hong kong! (i have this semi-written already). we finally get to meet our adorable, wacky scientists! Heart-Wrenching Decisions (tm) are made! AND THEN THE BREACH.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri pulls away, in the aftermath of the trial, and Viktor mends things just in time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um, so. I'm sorry it's been so long. this also got a lot more involved than expected, so ... there will be another chapter? in probably another month? based on past data, that seems a reasonable expectation. it's not even like i write a hundred words a day, people!! i just! only have mental energy to flop around and read fic after work. though i've in my infinite folly also signed up for the big bang, so who knows?! i'm sorry ):

  
  
  


It’s the faint rustling that draws Viktor out of his light doze. 

He lifts his head off his crossed arms, propped on the lip of the mattress, and Yuuri freezes. His back is one long, strained line, turned away to reach for the buttons on the bed-side console. 

“Looks like we ended up in the med suites anyway,” Viktor tries, reaching for a joking tone. 

A motionless beat passes, then Yuuri sighs and slumps back down onto the bed. 

“Why am I in here?” 

Viktor kneels up so that he can see Yuuri better and raises an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t _we_ be in here?”

Reluctantly, quietly, turning his face away from Viktor, Yuuri says, “It’s embarrassing.” 

Viktor wants with all his heart to climb in beside Yuuri and wrap around him the way he’s done for the past three nights, ever since Yuuri pulled him into that narrow bed in Hasetsu. Now, he’s not entirely sure of his welcome. 

He reaches out to cup Yuuri’s face and turn Yuuri so they’re looking at each other again. 

“I don’t know about you,” Viktor says, “but I think it’s perfectly acceptable to be monitored after some neurological backlash.”

Yuuri’s eyes are dark and desolate, but not shuttered away yet. Viktor climbs onto the bed, following Yuuri as he pushes himself up so that he can curl in over his knees, drawn up to his chest. 

“That’s embarrassing too,” Yuuri confesses into his knees. “All of it ...” He looks up, pulls Viktor’s hand by the wrist away from his cheek. Viktor’s heart stutters in his chest: Yuuri’s eyes are now opaque, impenetrable. “I’m sorry, I’m holding you back.” 

“You ... what?” Viktor can’t quite believe his ears. “Yuuri, no. What happened was —”

The door swings open then, and Yuuri’s hand tightens on Viktor’s wrist before pulling away. Viktor reclaims it. 

The attending medic smiles at them absently, most of her attention focussed on scanning over their vitals in sharp, quick movements. She doesn’t seem to notice or be bothered by the tense quiet that’s befallen the room. 

“Well,” she says. “Everything looks okay for you two.”

Yuuri sits up straighter. “So we can go?”

Her dark eyes are sharp when she looks straight at Yuuri this time. “We’d prefer to keep you in here for a couple more hours. Why, do you need to go?” 

“No,” Viktor interrupts. “It’s fine. Our neural pathways — they look okay?”

The medic’s gaze flicks over to him, and then back down to the tablet in her hands. “Yes. We’ll scan you again before you’re discharged, but no permanent damage was done when the handshake with your Jaeger was broken, since your neural bridge was stable by that point. That’s what the history tells me, anyway.” 

“When you say no _permanent_ damage was done...”

“Nikiforov,” she says, exasperated. “You’ll be fine. Katsuki will be fine. I’ll see you guys at sunrise. Get some more rest.” With that, she sweeps back out, the door swinging shut with a quiet _snick_ behind her. 

Viktor turns back to look at Yuuri, quite ready to pick up the conversation where they’d left off. But some pall has settled over Yuuri’s face, like a Japanese mask from one of those elegaic, slow-moving plays they’d caught Toshiya-san nodding off to one day. A metaphor that Viktor hasn’t yet learnt to read. 

“Yuuri,” he tries anyway. “You chased the rabbit, yes, but don’t you remember _why_ that happened?” Because Viktor does; he remembers the crash and fury of the Pacific slapping against the armoured hull of Maccachin’s legs and the tilting, aching, premonitory sadness that dragged like the tides. It would have been him, if not for Yuuri.

Yuuri’s expression cracks briefly; Viktor glimpses anguished turmoil before it seals over again, though, when Yuuri tightens his lips and shakes his head, once, before swinging his legs over the side of the bed and getting up to pace around the room in tense circles. 

Viktor sighs and lies down in Yuuri’s place, stretching out the kinks in his back and tightness in his core. 

“You aren’t holding me back at all, Yu _u_ ri,” Viktor says, sing-song, into the stillness of the room. Only the muted beeps of the monitors and the dull padding of Yuuri’s feet against the floor dare disturb it. “You —”

A palm descends to cover his mouth, muffle the rest of his words.

“Don’t,” Yuuri says tensely, eyebrows knitted together. He looks like he’s in _pain_ , and Viktor’s about to reach over and hit the nurse button when Yuuri’s other hand catches him, and Yuuri says again: “Don’t.” 

And what can Viktor do, then, but reach out and pull Yuuri back down to himself, and hold him tight. 

Yuuri’s stiff in his arms, and only relaxes inch by reluctant inch, until his breaths slow and even out. Viktor is left to his own thoughts and, eventually, uneasy dreams.

 

*

 

“I don’t understand,” Viktor laments to Phichit, whom he has bribed with one of the highly coveted remaining bottles of shochu. He’d stuck to Yuuri like a burr after they’d been discharged, all the way up to the showers, where Yuuri’d disappeared. “We’ve _shared headspace_ and I don’t understand.”

Phichit just looks at him, bottle tapping against his bottom lip. They are really quite alike in some ways, him and Yuuri; they both have expressive eyes that are perfectly capable of being completely unreadable.

“Well, if just establishing a neural bridge with someone meant you understood them inside out, then us psych analysts would be pretty much out of a job, wouldn’t we?”

Viktor must look hopelessly confused; he’d never had much need for Georgi ... before. 

“Look - do you understand all of your own thoughts?” Phichit puts the bottle down so he can gesture freely with his hands. “Every fleeting thought that goes through your brain, every memory you have, every feeling you have attached to those things - do you understand why they’re there and why you’re having them?”

This gives him pause. “Nooooo,” Viktor says, drawing it out.

“Right,” says Phichit. “And when, let’s say, what you think and believe don’t always match up to each other, that’s confusing, right?”

Viktor nods. 

“And when we take that even further, like, when we take not-matching-up all the way to the most antagonistic extreme, and it’s constantly like - a war of attrition. Against yourself.” 

The breath catches in Viktor’s throat.

Understanding is always described as _dawning_ on someone, a benediction spilling light over the dark plain of ignorance. What bullshit - it’s clawing its way up Viktor’s throat now, threatening to break open his ribs. Tears, for some reason, burn in his eyes. 

“We’ve drifted,” is all Viktor can say plaintively.

“You’ve thought his thoughts,” Phichit says quietly. “And you’ve felt what he feels. Sometimes, that’s too close.”

 

*

 

In the days that follow, Viktor tries his best to be patient. 

Funny how he’d been thinking about how they ought to be assimilating into the wider society of the Shatterdome; this has just telescoped their world further. 

He invites Yuuri to spar; Yuuri says no.

He wants to show Yuuri Maccachin’s completed naginata; Yuuri says no. 

He tries dragging Yuuri out of the Shatterdome for egg waffles from North Point; Yuuri says no.

It’s aggravating, no matter how much he tries telling himself that it isn’t Yuuri’s fault, because ... because Yuuri’s withdrawn from him, and Viktor’d got so used to having Yuuri so quickly. Because the next event looms. Because he feels, even though rationally he knows it isn’t so, like all the hard work in Hasetsu has been rendered null and void.

Viktor’s frustration is usually turned inward, but it boils over when he catches Yuri taunting Yuuri, once, outside the canteen. There’s an edge of desperation to Yuri’s bearing that would ordinarily have given Viktor pause; he is not proud of himself, but in that moment it is only Yuuri’s intervention that stops him and sends Yuri scampering off down the corridor. 

It doesn’t help that this is the most alive he’s seen Yuuri since that golden afternoon right before the trial with Maccachin. 

“I don’t need you to do that,” Yuuri says firmly, fine eyebrows drawn close together. 

Viktor’s temper flares again. “I can’t just stand by and let that - that _otrod'ye_ insult you!” 

“He’s _fifteen_ ,” Yuuri says, and it’s almost withering. Because Yura _is_ fifteen, and has been too close to death far too many times. Yuuri must see the change in Viktor’s face, because everything about him quietens, and the spark drains out of him. What is left is a sad, tired man. Viktor abruptly remembers his conversation with Phichit again, and winces. “Don’t you trust me to know when to defend myself?” 

Ah, shit. 

“I do,” Viktor says, and puts all of his heart into it. 

Yuuri smiles tightly. “Then why didn’t you?” 

“I -” Viktor’s words stop up. What is he to say? _It wasn’t you; it’s me_? 

His hesitation runs on too long, because Yuuri shrinks in on himself. 

Viktor probably wasn’t meant to hear Yuuri’s little “oh”. 

“No, Yuuri,” he reaches out desperately. “I didn’t mean - I wasn’t thinking -”

“But that’s -” The tremble in Yuuri’s voice sends something panicked and sour shooting through Viktor’s chest. “That’s the truth, then, isn’t it?” 

Oh no, Yuuri’s eyes are wet. And they’re still in the main corridor outside the canteen, which Yuuri seems to have realised, his eyes sliding to the side before widening in horror. 

Snatching his chance, Viktor seizes Yuuri’s hand and says, “Let’s go somewhere else.” It is slightly reassuring that Yuuri doesn’t pull away, though when he glances down at Yuuri, tears are sliding silently down his face. All he wants to do is stop and gather Yuuri into his arms, but he isn’t sure if he’s allowed right now. 

They walk in tense silence, keeping to the service corridors, winding their way out of the Shatterdome to one of the deserted outdoor decks. 

The quiet hitches in Yuuri’s breath are getting louder and tearing at Viktor when they finally reach a fire door leading to the outside.

Wintery wind cuts through their indoor clothes the moment they step out of doors. Yuuri shivers, Viktor automatically moves closer to him, and then Yuuri’s sobs spill over, ugly and loud. 

“Yuuri,” Viktor says despairingly, and assays a touch to his back. 

“How can I be your partner in - in this, if you don’t even trust me?” Yuuri cries. “I know my, my mind is weak -”

“No it’s not,” Viktor protests, but Yuuri isn’t listening. 

“And I’m _useless_ like this. Look, I can’t even —” Yuuri steps away and kicks out, stance wobbly. Viktor catches his foot and steadies him around the middle. 

“Stop punishing yourself,” Viktor says, thumb pressing tighter around the knob of Yuuri’s ankle. “Stop punishing _us_.” 

Another gust of wind funnels through the container buildings on the far end of the deck, and Viktor manhandles Yuuri out of the kick into his arms. 

“You have to trust me more than I trust myself,” Yuuri says, in between muffled sobs. “Or else what’s the point?” 

“I do!” Viktor half-shouts. “I will. You’re not useless. I was being an idiot. _Yuuri_ , please. That wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t had to try and pull me out of that memory. We .. you heard the medic, all we did was get stuck in a memory. Our neural bridge was strong, and we shook hands with Macca so well we almost crushed LOCCENT.”

Yuuri looks up at him and gave a hiccuping laugh. From this close up, Viktor can see the tears clumping Yuuri’s eyelashes together, the raw, reddened tip of his nose, and best of all: the dawning clarity in his eyes.

“Don’t hold back on me now, Yuuri,” Viktor says, voice low, thumbing away the tears from Yuuri’s cheeks. 

Slowly, Yuuri nods. “You too.” 

 

*

 

Fate being what it is, the sirens start blaring when they are making their way to the Kwoon. 

“Now?” Yuuri asks, disbelievingly. 

“They’re psychic,” Viktor says darkly, and they’re both breaking into a run for LOCCENT.

It’s organised chaos in there, Celestino roaring at the LOCCENT techs and Yakov shouting even louder to the Rangers. It’s testament to how long their teams have been working with the both of them that no one even bats an eyelid under the aural onslaught. Yuuko catches sight of them and her eyebrows raise, hand going to her mouth, before efficiency takes over again and she signals for Yakov’s attention.

“ _What_ , Nishigori?” Yakov growls, before following her line of sight to them. “Oh, you two. I don’t have time for —”

“Let us play back-up,” Yuuri interrupts. Viktor could kiss him. 

“We’re okay now,” Viktor insists when Yakov gives Yuuri’s red eyes a dubious look. 

Celestino, attention caught as well, gives them an appraising look, before turning to Yakov. “They’ll be okay.” 

“Fine,” Yakov gruffs. “Suit up and stand by, you two.” 

“Roger that, Yakov!” Viktor chirps, and drags Yuuri away before Yakov changes his mind. 

 

*

 

Chris is less flirtatious in the Drivesuit Room this time round, lines of tension spidering out from the corners of his eyes as he snaps Viktor and Yuuri into their suits. 

“You sure about this?” Chris mutters under his breath to Viktor. 

“ _Yes_ ,” says Viktor. “I have a bad feeling about this attack.” 

The eyeroll that Chris gives him makes Viktor feel a lot better. 

“LOCCENT,” Chris reports over his comm link. “Macca Chi is suited up.”

There’s a pause, LOCCENT occupied with getting the other 3 Jaeger out into Victoria Harbour, before Yuuko’s voice comes crackling over the announcement system. 

“Roger that, tech. Marshall Yakov wants you down here for strategy, Ranger Nikiforov.” 

Viktor thinks about protesting - it takes at least 5 minutes at a steady jog to get from LOCCENT up to the Conn Pods. 

“Two heat signatures approaching,” Yuuko says, voice tense. “ETA 10 minutes. Get down here, Nikiforov!” 

“Two?” Chris mouths incredulously.

“Well, the scientists predicted this,” Yuuri says. “Didn’t they?”

Viktor shakes his head, and strides towards the lift. “Come with me, Yuuri?” 

“Don’t worry about me,” Chris cuts in, smile tipping up sardonically in one corner. “I’ll be up here all by my lonesome.” 

Even Yuuri rolls his eyes at that, before joining Viktor in the lift. “See you, Chris.”

“No offence,” Chris says as the doors close. “But I hope it doesn’t come to that.” 

 

*

 

Yakov snaps, “Finally! What were you doing, crawling?” when Viktor jogs into LOCCENT with Yuuri on his heels. “Never mind, just - come here. This is one of the scenarios you were designing tactics for, wasn’t it?” 

Tapping his finger on his lips, Viktor surveys the tactical plans that Yakov has up in front of him. Lilia is standing off to the side, arms crossed and face tense, undoubtedly listening in. 

“Yes, I played around with this scenario a few years ago. I think ... with our Jaeger’s capacities ...” 

“T minus 6 minutes,” Yuuko reads out from the scanner in front of her.

Viktor feels more than sees Yuuri move off to stand next to Yuuko, and reels Yuuri back into his side instead.

“Yuuri, what do you think?” 

“Eh?” Yuuri says. “Um, is this the time?” 

“At least one of you has enough sense - the plan, Vitya, we need one _now_.” 

“Have Ina Bauer take point, go in heavy and strong. The other two should defend and —”

Celestino swears loudly all of a sudden. “One heat signature just disappeared?!” 

“What?!” Yakov yells. 

“— defend and guard for the magical disappearing Kaiju,” Viktor finishes drily. 

“Three points - equidistant from point?” Yuuri asks hesitantly. “Or - Yuuko-chan, where are they entering from?”

“West - 4 minutes!” 

“Move Ina Bauer out to Sai Wan,” Yakov snaps into his mic. “The other two further back.” 

“Won’t they hit Lantau first?” one of the newer techs asks, looking up from his work station.

“No,” Viktor answers, grim. “It’s us they want. Aerial Corps - Azzurri Beta and Roi Argent to Sheung Wan.” 

“Rangers, do you copy that?” Celestino asks in the background. “Aerial - get back here once Jaegers are in position.”

“Copy that,” all three Jaegers report. 

“Readying Sting Blade,” Mila says smoothly. 

“Stupid heating charge time,” adds Yuri. 

“I hope Yura doesn’t actually cut down his ‘copter,” Viktor murmurs, eyes fixed on the west-facing window. 

“We’re in position,” Michele Crispino announces. “And charging up our blaster.” 

“So eager,” Isabella teases. “Roi Argent is in position too.” 

“Nice day for it,” says Mila. The sun is setting on the horizon, backlighting dark stormclouds an ominous red. 

“Shut up, Baba. We’re situated parallel to Kennedy Town,” Yuri says tersely. “T minus one minute?”

“We still can’t find the other heat signature,” Celestino reports. “The bastards have learnt to shield. Get ready, this one’s coming from underwater.” 

Viktor’s been party to more than ten Kaiju kills, but he still says an emphatic “ _fuck_!” when a slimy, lizard-y Kaiju bursts out of the water less than 400m from Ina Bauer. 

“It looks like the uglier cousin of Taurax,” Yuuri says, eyes wide. “I hated that Kaiju.” 

“This motherfucker has one tough hide,” Yuri grunts. Over the system, the whining sound of Ina Bauer activating its ramjet rockets right into the Kaiju is coupled with twin battle cries. 

“Rawhide,” Celestino says. “Class IV Kaiju. Initial bio-scans indicate acid spitting capabilities.” 

“Where?” JJ asks for Ina Bauer, still locked into a grapple with Rawhide. 

“I — _what_?” Celestino’s voice raises. “Disengage, Ina Bauer, _disengage_.”

The way both Mila and Yuri say “Easier said than _done_ ” in unison would be a thing of beauty if not for the edge of panic in Celestino’s voice when he says, “It’s like a _frog_.” 

“Okay,” Mila says. “Gross.”

“Eat some Pulse Gauntlet!” Yuri shouts, also sounding grossed out, and the force of the projectile launch blows Ina Bauer back hundreds of metres. “Shit, have we lost it? No - it’s coming, and it’s _slimy_.” 

“So unbeautiful,” Lilia murmurs from where she’s observing the two dots representing Rawhide and Ina Bauer on the big screen tracker. 

“What I want to know,” Viktor tells Yuuri, “is whether they copied frogs, or if they have their own alternate dimension frogs.” 

Yuuri gives him an incredulous look as the sounds of more rockets being fired at Rawhide come over the system. “I don’t even want to think about it, Viktor.”

“Hey, Mila, you look like you need some help,” Sara says. 

“Dio mio,” Celestino growls. “ _No_.” 

“We’ve got the range,” Michele retorts. 

“No, no, no,” order Celestino. “There’s another kaiju out there and a city to defend.”

Ina Bauer looks like it’s playing a merry game of keep-away with Rawhide; something only a Mark V Jaeger can do, with its lighter weight construction and greater agility. But dancing in a motion rig, in a Jaeger, is very tiring, and Mila and Yuri are very young.

Viktor leans into Yakov’s mic. “Ina Bauer, feint. Then L’Azzurri can go. And then your Sting Blade to end it. Time it.” 

There’s a pause, and Viktor can feel Yakov’s eyes boring into the side of his head. 

“Azze,” Mila’s voice comes other the comms, slightly breathless. “We’re going left, using pulse to keep it in place for 5 seconds. You have our coordinates?”

“We can see you,” Michele says drily. “Celestino?”

“Coordinates coming,” Celestino says tersely. 

By Viktor’s side, Yuuri has his hands pressed together as in prayer, fingertips pressing indents into his chin. He looks like he wishes he could be out there too; Viktor can sympathise.

Further out west, Ina Bauer and Azzurri Beta are executing the manoeuvre while Celestino keeps count for them. 

“Yes!” Sara shouts gleefully, as Rawhide eats a face full of plasma blast and staggers back onto Ina Bauer’s superheated, carbon-reinforced blade. 

With a flourish, Mila and Yuri drag it through the Kaiju, cauterising the slice as they go, and kick its carcass out further into Belcher Bay. 

A sigh of relief runs through LOCCENT. 

And then another kaiju comes bursting out of cover and sets upon the Crispinos.

“Fuck,” they hear Yuri spit. They’re all wondering how it got past Ina Bauer in the first place.

This kaiju - another Cat V - seems to be made of all limbs, and the sheer surprise of the sudden onslaught has Azzurri at a disadvantage. 

“It has a _maw_ ,” Sara says. “Teeth! Fuck, _really long teeth_!”

“And a tail,” JJ adds, as the dot representing Roi Argent moves across the harbour to them. “Watch out for that.”

Too late, Viktor wails in his mind, and Yuuri whispers under his breath. 

“It’s got us,” Michele reports, voice preternaturally calm. “Tail is prehensile.” 

“No,” Celestino whispers into his mic. 

“Hold on!” JJ says frantically. “We’re coming for you - Izzy -” 

Plasma blasts arc across the shortening breadth of the harbour, burning bright against the dark sky, and strike the new kaiju in the back; all it does is shake them off, irritated. The electric shocks that Azzurri Zeta is delivering to the kaiju, gauntlets clenched around its girth, seem to be having about as much effect.

Viktor glances around LOCCENT and sees Yuuko standing at her station, fingertips pressed oto her mouth, her children next to her. The triplets are unusually hushed, staring wide-eyed out at the barely visible battle in the harbour - they look scared, Viktor realises, and his heart pulls at him. Yuuri is white lipped next to him; his gaze has been fixed on the girls as well. 

He’s reaching out to take Yuuri’s hand in his own when Yakov turns to them.

“Get out there now.”

They go, just as the kaiju cuts the Crispinos off at the knees. Yakov bows his head. 

“For humanity!” the siblings shout, emptying the rest of their clip into the kaiju, and then: nothing. 

Twin cries of rage shriek over the comms, loud enough to reach Viktor and Yuuri as they run down the corridor for the lift. 

“Ah, Sara,” Yuuri comments, just as the lift arrives. 

They’re shut off from the battle, until the lift spits them out into the Drivesuit Room, where Chris is waiting at the entrance to their Conn-Pod. 

“Propulsors are good,” Chris tells them as they’re being locked into the motion rig. “Ina Bauer reached them just before you arrived.” 

Yuri shouts in triumph over the comms, right before there’s a loud - a loud _absence_ of sound, or a sound so low in frequency it was felt more than heard. 

All around them, the Shatterdome dies down. 

“What the fuck?” Viktor asks, looking around. 

“EMP blast?” Yuuri guesses. 

“Shit, how are we —”

A hum rises in the background, and the emergency strip lights flicker on.

“Back-up generators, old-school,” Chris says, smirking, before it falls off his face. “We can get you out there, but you’ll be fighting blind out, boys.” 

In Viktor’s head, Yakov is already shouting a demand about where they are. 

As if he’s read Viktor’s mind, Yuuri tersely says, “Let’s go”. 

“Good luck,” Chris says, checking their connections one last time. “Godspeed.” 

Yuuri takes a deep breath as Chris slides the door shut behind him and secures it. 

“Hey,” Viktor says, reaching out across the space between their rigs. Their fingertips just about barely brush, like this. “We’re going to be amazing.”

 

*

 

Viktor is distantly aware and impressed, somewhere in the sea of memories and thoughts sloshing about his brain, that Chris is the one activating the Pons system right now, and allowing their neural bridge to be initiated. A sharper, brighter overlay of the same thought settles, and he thinks, _Yuuri_ with all the warmth he can project.

 _Hey_ , Yuuri replies, and the fondness makes Viktor feel like - like - _focus, Viktor_ , Yuuri laughs. 

Together, the bottoms fall out of their stomachs as they drop — one of them hopes that Chris managed to get the hatch open, and then they’re locking into Maccachin, body and mind, and being airlifted out of the Shatterdome, borne by Aerial towards the battle. 

Ina Bauer gleams, white and statuesque in the distance. They fancy they can feel Yuri’s glower all the way from here. JJ and Isabella are still going, Roi Argent being a legacy Jaeger also run on nuclear power. 

The unnamed kaiju, LOCCENT being out of commission, is thrashing in Roi Argent’s hold as it’s punched over and over with plasma blasts; its claws are gouging into the jaeger’s titanium alloy casing like so much aluminium foil. 

They’re descending in height rapidly, and then splash into the harbour as Aerial makes the drop.

“It’s _so_ ugly,” the edge of disdain in Yuuri’s thought is so Lilia-like that it makes Viktor laugh, even as they sight and aim along Plasma Blaster. 

The kaiju jerks when the hit lands, but does not turn its attention away from JJ and Isabella, ripping its tail out of Roi Argent’s grip with a harsh screech.

_I wonder - if we cut its tail off -_

Yuuri’s already drawing the naginata before Viktor finishes his thought, and Viktor sinks into ready position along with him.

Maccachin is nowhere near as limber or light on her feet as Yuuri, but the drift makes it feel so, like they’re skating on ice rather than striding through churning, choppy waves under a dark, rainy sky. 

Roi Argent must have caught sight of them, because JJ and Isabella redouble their efforts to occupy the kaiju, and make a quarter turn that forces it to lash out with its tail for balance, vulnerable to attack.

It shrieks, a palpable sound wave that slaps the waves higher and shakes Maccachin’s metal casing as Viktor and Yuuri, Yuuri and Viktor, make a clean strike through its tail. Blue, frothy ichor bursts forth before the wound is hastily cauterised by a quick blast of plasma. Viktor had not quite had enough time to include superheating in the naginata’s design; Yuuri soothes his chagrin over. 

The awful thing, still more limbs than torso, even without the tail, abandons Roi Argent and leaps at them. Roi Argent _staggers_ backward, with the force of its push off, and a spike of alarm rebounds between them. 

Viktor feels more than he hears Yuuri’s _they want children_ and Viktor understands: they are the bait here, the close combat team.

And the new kaiju latches onto their back, shrieking as they spin the naginata and cut into a few more of its seemingly endless limbs. Kaiju blue sprays out and spread, luminescent blue, over the dark water of the harbour. 

_Oh no_ , Yuuri thinks dolefully, even as they execute an around the back spin to try and spear it in ... some part of its body, anyway.. 

It is at this point, of course, that the kaiju unfurls great, leathery wings and flaps so hard it whips up a wave that would most certainly flood Tsim Sha Tsui. Roi Argent, which had been getting ready to fire plasma at the kaiju, detours to break the wave.

 _What the fuck_ , Viktor thinks with Yuuri, as they are lifted out of the water.

 _Do we have wings_? Yuuri asks hopelessly.

Viktor doesn’t even have to formulate the response in his brain. He’s sure the wave of sheer horror and what-the-fuck-itude has it covered. 

_Okay_ , the shared thought itself is shaky. _Okay_

They look up, and — in Hasetsu, they’d spent a few evenings reading The Hobbit to each other. A dragon’s belly always, _always_ , has a weak spot.

Though this kaiju is more of a flying octopus with wings. 

_Ah - Akkorokamui. Octopus-like demon,_ Yuuri paints the romanisation in their Headspace, and thinks of the one ukiyo-e print he saw as a child.

They’re soaring over Ina Bauer now - it seems like the kaiju is taking them for a dip in the Pacific.

 _Fitting,_ Viktor agrees. _Well - Akkoro...kamui_.

As they shift their grip and center of balance, Yuuri finishes: _You’re going down_

Lightning-quick, and without any finesse at all, they thrust the naginata up — and it pierces through, before striking something like bone. They tilt alarmingly, as Akkorokamui lets out a shriek of pain and wheels southeast towards the city.

Humanity being what it is, and Hong Kongers especially being who they are, the main financial district located along the northern strip of coastline on Hong Kong Island has stayed stubbornly put since K-Day. The UN would probably find a way to defund the PPDC even further if they landed on the IFC. 

They launch a salvo of plasma blasts with the blaster on Maccachin’s right arm; Akkorokamui dips and swerves left. Angry limbs batter at them; Yuuri gasps aloud as they slip in Akkorokamui’s grip. 

_We have to land on Connaught,_ Viktor decides, as the ferry piers come into sight. 

Emptying another clip into Akkorokamui, they drop swerve again, and narrowly miss kicking in the distinctive Bank of China tower. The kaiju has no such compunctions, and they discover a new ability when it spits acid that immediately eats through a glass curtain wall when they twist out of the way. 

_Where -_ Yuuri vents, while they process the biological readouts on his HUD. 

They look up again, and start climbing hand over hand up the naginata shaft, against the drag of the arms that Akkorokamui still has gripping them. It realises a little too late what they’re doing, as they reach up and fire a full gauntlet of plasma blasts into where they hope the acid sac is. 

Akkorokamui shakes them in howling rage, a smoking crater in its side, and its arms smash through the coolant system on Macca’s left flank.

_Shit! We need to end this now!_

_And angle north._

_At this point I think it’s okay if we crush a few buildings, Yuuri_.

But then they’re suddenly, wobblingly, soaring higher and higher, over the tops of even the highest skyscrapers in Hong Kong, gaining altitude and shedding heat. 

_The naginata_ , Yuuri thinks.

Ignoring the ear-popping change in air pressure, they start pulling at it, trying to dislodge it from where it’d been wedged between Akkorokamui’s hypothetical ribs. 

_Come on come on,_ Viktor chants, Yuuri grimly silent in the drift. 

“10, 000 feet,” Maccachin’s AI reports, and a red light starts flashing in the Conn-Pod.

The naginata is still stuck fast. 

“15, 000 feet.” 

They try wiggling the naginata back and forth.

“20, 000 feet.” 

Finally, something gives, and Akkorokamui lurches - their stomachs lurch with her.

But this is too important. 

“25, 000 feet.”

They’re running out of oxygen.

“30, 000 feet.”

The naginata comes loose, and they whip it down, cutting along the descending arc of a parabola. 

“Losing altitude. 25, 000 feet.” 

The limbs gripping them slacken, even as Kaiju blue oozes all over Macca’s chassis. No death cry accompanies their free fall back to earth. 

“15, 000 feet. Initialising parachute system.”

Sudden realisation has them scrambling to cut Akkorokamui loose. They sweep the naginata back and forth, struggling to stay balanced mid-fall, clearing the limbs around them. There are probably buildings all over Hong Kong now with Kaiju blue pockmarks. Akkorokamui judders suddenly, and in a panic they bisect the rest of it and clumsily blast it with the last clip of plasma they have.

That blast forces them apart, just in time for Macca to engage the parachute system.

They land judderingly, stumbling onto one knee, and a section of a nearby overpass collapses as the shock of their landing reverberates through Central. 

 

*

 

Yakov eventually sends some people to come and retrieve them. Eventually. It’s long enough that they broken the handshake with Maccachin themselves and exited the drift to sit together on the platform and gaze out at the lights of Tsim Sha Tsui reflected off the dark glassy waves of Victoria Harbour through Maccachin’s eyes: the Conn Pod windshield. The rivulets of rain running down the glass of the windshield smear the neon into an Impressionist painting. 

Their pick-up is announced by the familiar hum of a helicopter fleet.

Yura’s friend Otabek is one of the Aerial Corps pilots, and he gives them his grim thumb’s up when they climb out the escape hatch onto Macca’s head. Viktor supposes that’s as good an endorsement as any. They ride with him again, and it’s peaceful, just the sound of rain slapping against the windows and the whir of the helicopter engine. 

When they get back into the Shatterdome, all Yuuri wants to do is take a shower and go to sleep, which is understandable, but —

“Our adoring public awaits, Yuuri,” Viktor tells him, delighting in how Yuuri is allowing Viktor to guide him along with a hand in the small of his back. 

“I want a shower,” Yuuri says grumpily. People react to prolonged combat in the drift in different ways; Yuuri’s grouchiness is, too, a delight. 

“Soon,” Viktor sings, “Soon. I promise it won’t take too long.” 

And then they’re at the tall, heavy double doors that lead into the hangar.

Yuuri stops altogether, and stares at them with a hunted look.

“Yu _u_ ri,” Viktor says quietly, slipping his hand round to Yuuri’s hip, pulling him close. “You’re a hero.”

The flush that spreads across Yuuri’s cheeks to the tips of his ears makes Viktor want to, well. That’s for _after_ they greet their adoring public. 

“Okay.” Yuuri swallows, and pushes at the doors. “Let’s go.” 

The doors swing open, pulled open by techs who had clearly been waiting, and the room bursts into cheers and applause. People line an empty path leading directly to where Yakov, Lilia, and Celestino are clapping too. Everyone is wearing a black band around an arm, and Viktor presses his lips together, hard. Halfway down the path, they spot both of Ina Bauer and sigh in relief.

“Not too bad,” Yuri says grudgingly. He’s standing with Mila, whose arm is in a black sling.

Viktor feels his eyes widen — _that’s_ a tactical loss. “Mila?” 

She smiles ruefully at him, and Yuri scowls at the floor. “That EMP-producing kaiju got a good one in before JJ and Izzy came to the rescue.” 

“Oh no...” Yuuri murmurs softly, glancing worriedly between her and Yuri. 

Mila’s smile hardens. “I’m glad you killed it that way. I —” her voice breaks, and she turns away.

Yuri’s scowl intensifies, and he shuffles closer to Mila. 

“Go away,” he mutters to them. “That bastard JJ is waiting.”

Somewhere in the crowd of back-slapping and fist-pumping, they finally find the pilots of Roi Argent. 

“Thank you,” JJ says, stripped entirely of any of his usual exuberance. Fervently, he repeats himself, pressing Victor’s hands between his own. “ _Thank you_.”

Isabella is talking softly and intensely to Yuuri, next to them, and they both look a little teary. Yuuri looks up, sensing Viktor’s gaze, and smiles uncertainly at him.

“Right,” Viktor decides. “Sorry, we both need a shower and a nap, you know how it is.” 

JJ and Isabella definitely look like they’ve had a shower, at the very least, and they nod fervently. 

Settling his arm around Yuuri again, he tosses a “See you later” over his shoulder as he leads them away through the crowd. Yuuri’s sagging against him, and he can feel the exhaustion seeping through Yuuri’s bones like they’re his own. Viktor navigates them through the crowd; it helps that people let them through, once they see that it’s Viktor and that Yuuri’s falling asleep on his feet. It’s testament to Yuuri’s _everything_ , probably, that they smile so fondly. 

Jostling Yuuri a little when they are disgorged into one of the side corridors, Viktor murmurs, “Hey, sleepyhead. Come on, let’s shower, then we can sleep.” 

Yuuri gives him a baleful look, before turning his gaze to his feet. 

Viktor can feel his sleepy resentment, just as he can hear Yuuri muttering left-right, left-right in Japanese under his breath. He tries to keep his amusement to himself, but isn’t too successful, as Yuuri accidentally-on-purpose trips into the lift when it arrives and lands on Viktor. 

A quick scrub-down in the showers revives Yuuri enough to walk on his own back to their rooms before pausing there, in the corridor between their doors. Viktor stops behind him; they’d slept apart in the nights after the trial. For a certain definition of ‘sleep’, anyway.

Yuuri reaches out to lay a hand on his doorknob, and Viktor’s heart seizes up.

Shyly, Yuuri turns and asks, “Sleep with me?” 

Viktor feels his face crinkle up in a smile. 

He raises an eyebrow and purrs, “I think we’ve had enough physical exertion for today, Yuuri.”

“What —” Yuuri blushes up to his ears again, “Viktor! I didn’t mean - I meant just sleeping!” 

“Ah, Yuuri,” Viktor croons, cupping Yuuri’s face in his hands. “You’re too cute.”

Yuuri frowns at him, before turning away to open his door. “Stop teasing me.” 

“But you’re so cute, Yuuri.” 

Viktor takes the opportunity to slip his arms around Yuuri from behind and lift.

“Viktor! Put me down!” 

Walking them through the door, Viktor obliges; he puts Yuuri down on the bed. Yuuri immediately curls up and yawns. He wriggles under the blanket and scoots closer to the wall, looking up at Viktor expectantly. 

Viktor kicks the door shut and rapidly closes the short distance between it and the bed, crawling under the blanket and curling around Yuuri, tucking a leg between Yuuri’s and sliding an arm over Yuuri. 

“Hi,” Viktor says nonsensically.

Yuuri blinks heavily at him, yawning again. “Hh - Hi. Good nigh-igh-giht.” 

Unable to restrain himself, Viktor leans in to kiss him on the nose. He counts himself lucky that Yuuri’s too sleepy to react beyond blinking at Viktor again and scrunch his forehead up. Viktor kisses that too, and faced with no protest, continues onto the corners of Yuuri’s eyes, his cheeks, his chin.

“Vik _tor_ ,” Yuuri says at last, sounding exasperated. “I’m trying to _sleep_.”

“Sorry,” Viktor says unrepentantly, and kisses the corner of his downturned mouth. 

That results in more rapid blinking, and Yuuri’s breath hitching. 

“Hey, Yuuri,” Viktor asks, in an effort to distract from what he’d just done. “I just thought of something.”

Yuuri narrows his eyes myopically at him. “What?”

“You know how we fried Akko-Akko-I forget the rest of it - at the end?. And it was like a flying octopus?”

“...yes, Viktor?” 

“We made takoyaki!” Viktor says excitedly, and starts laughing. He might be a little bit loopy from exhaustion. But he gets a puff of laughter from Yuuri, before _Yuuri_ ’s lips are on his, so brief he might’ve imagined it, except Yuuri’s ears are pink when he says, “Good _night_ , Viktor,” and pushes his face, warm, against Viktor’s neck. 

It’s possible that he’s still oxygen-deprived, because Viktor feels light-headed and his limbs are buzzing. The smile seems permanently etched onto his face though, and he nuzzles into Yuuri’s hair, eyes closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flying octopus kaiju's working names were: takoyaki (thus the joke), octopussy, lethal flying spaghetti monster
> 
> alsowik, i 100% only got this done tonight because REIYA [POSTED THE VIKTOR COMPANION FIC](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10450500) TO UMFBMHA & it is going to be my reward. 
> 
> alsoalsowik, this seems to be the done thing these days so - i am also [forochel on tumblr](http://forochel.tumblr.com)! bc i've stayed on-brand for over a decade & see no reason to change. come say hello and bug me to write, please. i log on at least thrice a week.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. hahaha sorry evan. (we decided that his jaeger was probably called QUAD ORANGE)  
> 2\. my knowledge re: ballet: 0% (i mean. awareness of the existence of grand jetes, plies, the Nutcracker, and Giselle might make that 0.1% but i'm rounding down)  
> 3\. my knowledge re: any martial art ever: also 0%  
> I've tried to do my research, but please let me know if I should ... tweak anything.


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